Malaysia and Vietnam intend to sign a memorandum of understanding that experts say could eventually help ease a decades-old, six-party dispute over sovereignty in the resource-rich South China Sea.Maritime law enforcement agencies from the two Southeast Asian countries aim to sign the memo this year and resolve at least 15 years of trouble over the movement of Vietnamese fishing vessels, the official Bernama news agency in Malaysia reported in early April. Bernama quoted the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency director-general saying he’s confident the deal, now in its final stages, will solve the issue of Vietnamese fishing boats that enter Malaysian-claimed waters.Vietnamese boats are known for fishing in waters off the peninsular Malaysian east coast, leading Malaysian authorities to detain 748 vessels and 7,203 Vietnamese crew members from 2006 through 2019, Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry says on its website. The ministry calls the “encroachments” a violation of Malaysia’s sovereignty.If the memo helps both sides, their cooperation could eventually go deeper and enable them to resist the sea’s militarily strongest claimant, China — or work alongside it — some analysts believe. Deals to date call for joint use of parts of the sea, set up joint crime-fighting mechanisms and, in one case, require China to delineate its maritime boundary.’No other options but to cooperate’Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan claim all or parts of the same 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. Indonesia chafes with China over the waterways’ southern reaches.“If Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia can work together, then at that time China will have no other options but to cooperate with these Southeast Asian claimants,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, Center for International Studies director at University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.China alarms the other governments by landfilling small islets for airstrips and hangars. Its fishing fleets, survey vessels and coast guard ships periodically enter waters claimed by the Southeast Asian states. Beijing rejected a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. against the legal basis for its claims and has been unable to agree on a maritime code of conduct with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes four South China Sea claimants.A Malaysia-Vietnam memorandum should serve as a “role model” for other deals between South China Sea claimants, said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii.“This would be a very good steppingstone to more cooperation between Vietnam and Malaysia on the maritime domain,” Vuving said.Fishing a sticking pointAgreements around the South China Sea are few today but have a record of building trust by solving local problems even as the wider sovereignty issue lingers.Analysts believe the Vietnam-Malaysia memorandum would start by easing tension between Vietnam and Malaysia. Vietnamese fishing boats end up in Malaysian waters because the waters are close, not always clearly marked on maps and offer more fish than the seas nearer Vietnam.Fishing has become a sticking point for both countries, said Shariman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia. Malaysian authorities said in August a Vietnamese fisherman had been shot to death during a confrontation over the location of his vessel.“The Vietnamese fishing fleets, in search of stocks, they come south, so this [reported memo] is one way to regulate it. It’s becoming a real irritant in the bilateral relationship,” Lockman said. “When people in Malaysia talk about problems in the South China Sea, I think they tend to speak about China and Vietnam almost in the same breath.”China and Vietnam have abided since 2000 by a boundary demarcation in the Gulf of Tonkin, which extends along both Vietnamese and Chinese coastline and is one of the few places where Beijing has clarified the extent of its sovereignty. China uses a nine-dash line to delineate the remaining claim to about 90% of the South China Sea. China and Vietnam agreed in the same year to a joint Gulf of Tonkin fishing mechanism.Authorities from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed in 2017 to pool naval personnel who could track Islamic militants who had taken advantage of porous sea borders in waters near their coastlines.In 2009, Malaysia and Vietnam together sent to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf documents showing the extent of their South China Sea continental shelves.Their submission irked China but “forced claimant states to gradually clarify their positions on the legal status of features and the limits of their claims in the South China Sea,” Nguyen Hong Thao, associate professor of international law at the National University of Hanoi, wrote in a commentary this month.Any subsequent upgrade to the Vietnam-Malaysia memorandum would avoid content offensive to China, Lockman said. Vietnam regularly speaks out against Chinese activity in the disputed sea, but Malaysia keeps quieter. China is its biggest trading partner and top source of investment.
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Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm writhing in plastic-wrapped lettuce he’d just brought home from a Sydney supermarket — until a snake tongue flicked.”I kind of completely freaked out when I saw this little tongue come out of its mouth and start flicking around and realized it was a snake because worms don’t have tongues,” White said on Thursday.”I definitely kind of panicked a bit,” he added.It was a venomous pale-headed snake that authorities say made an 870-kilometer journey to Sydney from a packing plant in the Australian city of Toowoomba wrapped in plastic with two heads of cos lettuce.The refrigerated supermarket supply chain likely lulled the cold-blooded juvenile into a stupor until White bought the lettuce at an ALDI supermarket on Monday evening and rode his bicycle home with salad and snake in his backpack.White and his partner Amelia Neate spotted the snake moving as soon as the lettuce was unpacked onto the kitchen table.They also noticed the plastic wrapping was torn and that the snake could escape, so they quickly stuffed the reptile with the lettuce into a plastic food storage container.White phoned the WIRES rescue organization and a snake handler took the snake away that night.Before the handler arrived, White said WIRES had explained to him: “If you get bitten, you’ve got to go to hospital really quickly.”ALDI is investigating how a snake could have found its way into a supermarket.”We’ve worked with the customer and the team at WIRES to identify the snake’s natural habitat, which is certainly not an ALDI store!” the German-based supermarket chain said in a statement.WIRES reptile coordinator Gary Pattinson said while the snake was less than 20 centimeters long, it was “as venomous as it will ever be.”Pattinson is caring for the snake until it is returned to Queensland state next week, following the WIRES policy of returning rescued wildlife to where it comes from.”It’s the first snake I’ve ever had in sealed, packed produce,” Pattinson said. “We get frogs in them all the time.”Neate, a German immigrant, said her brush with a venomous snake in a Sydney kitchen was a setback in her efforts to assure relatives in Europe that Australia’s notoriously deadly Outback wildlife was nothing to worry about.”For the last 10 years or so, I’ve told my family at home that Australia’s a really safe country,” Neate said.”I’ve always said I’m just in the city; it’s totally fine here,” she added.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid his respects at the mausoleum for his grandfather Kim Il Sung on Thursday to mark the birthday of the founder of the state, official state news agency KCNA reported.Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, also watched a performance of song and dance at the Kumsusan Palace of Sun, where his father and grandfather lie in state, in celebration of the national holiday, KCNA reported Friday.”When the performance was over, the audience again broke into stormy cheers for the General Secretary,” it reported.Kim’s no-show at last year’s anniversary fanned speculation about his health. A flurry of unconfirmed reports about his condition and his whereabouts followed, including reports suggesting that Kim was in grave danger after a surgery.Kim was accompanied to the palace this year by senior North Korean officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong, KCNA reported.Earlier this month, North Korea said it would not take part in the Tokyo Olympic Games due to coronavirus concerns, dashing South Korean hopes that the games could be a catalyst to revive peace talks.North Korea says it has not had any coronavirus cases.
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The following is the full text of an interview with Koji Tomita, the Japanese ambassador in Washington, conducted this week in advance of a visit to the White House by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. An article based on the interview is also being published. VOA: What is the significance to Japan of the upcoming summit between President (Joe) Biden and Prime Minister (Yoshihide) Suga? What would Japan like to see happen at the summit? Will we see new evidence of closer cooperation between Tokyo and Washington in regional and global affairs? AMBASSADOR KOJI TOMITA: This is the first in-person Japan-U.S. summit for both leaders, an event that has always been important in setting a positive tone for our overall diplomatic relationship. We are also honored that Prime Minister Suga will be the first leader of a foreign nation to hold a face-to-face meeting with President Biden since he took office in January. Considering the circumstances with the COVID-19 pandemic and regional affairs, this meeting has an even higher profile than usual. I’m confident that both Prime Minister Suga and President Biden are going to rise to that challenge and build on the foundations of our strong relationship on a number of key points.  FILE – Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Koji Tomita, left, arrives at the foreign ministry in Seoul, March 6, 2020.First, the leaders will coordinate the strategy needed to further strengthen our alliance, and to realize a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” This is particularly important as the security environment in the region has become increasingly severe. President Biden and Prime Minister Suga will be building on the strong joint statement released following the recent “2 + 2” meetings in Tokyo, which endorsed the enhancement of the deterrence and response capabilities of the Japan-U.S. Alliance.We are very encouraged by President Biden’s active engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, as exemplified by the historic first Quad Summit meeting that he hosted. The international order is being challenged in various ways, so we hope to continue having specific discussions on the ways that Japan and the U.S. can take initiative in realizing our shared vision.  Second, Japan fully supports President Biden’s resolve to revert to multinationalism and to restore leadership in the international community. A multinational approach is critical for many of the challenges facing us today, and I expect the leaders to discuss our shared strategy in a number of these areas.  Climate change will certainly be one of those topics, especially in view of the Leaders Summit on Climate later this month, and the COP26 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) conference this November. Both Prime Minister Suga and President Biden have placed climate change policy at the center of their agendas, so I expect a substantial discussion during their meeting. I think this will be very productive, as they share a common vision on the topic, associating climate policy with economic growth realized through new investment, job expansion and innovation.  FILE – Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, March 18, 2021.Multilateralism is, of course, also important in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, including the distribution of vaccines to countries in need. Japan and the U.S. have closely cooperated on the pandemic response so far, so this will be another important topic to be discussed.  Finally, as I mentioned, the visit will be a perfect opportunity for Prime Minister Suga and President Biden to a build a personal relationship and trust, as the leaders of our countries have always done.  The Japanese people admire President Biden’s warm personality, which will obviously be a big part of this initial encounter. We will never forget his visit to the affected area right after the 3/11 Great East Japan Earthquake 10 years ago. I was actually there for that visit, and I greatly appreciated the way that he consoled victims and gave them a sense of hope.  I think Prime Minister Suga has a lot of similarities to President Biden, as a leader who did not inherit a political support network and had to build up his career through politics by themselves. Prime Minister Suga’s strength is that he understands the life of ordinary citizens and feels their joy and pain. I think these shared personal traits will lead to a solid rapport, which will allow them to tackle the tough questions that they must face together.  VOA: Many see Japan as taking a more proactive approach in the security (e.g., the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue/Quad) and political realms (e.g., recent pronouncements concerning human rights issues in China) alongside the United States and other democratic nation-states, compared with a more economics and trade-centered approach. Could you explain the rationale behind this? To what extent does this have to do with Beijing’s rising power and posture? TOMITA: As the strategic environment around Japan has become increasingly complex and uncertain, we need to utilize an increasingly complex set of policy responses, using everything in our diplomatic and security toolkits. Today we are faced with a variety of nonconventional threats, including cyberattacks, terrorism, trade restrictions and threats to the freedom of navigation that endanger critical sea lanes. Japan places importance on multilateralism and aims to realize a “united world” that collectively tackles challenges facing the international community. While some of these challenges require us to develop new approaches, I think that it is important to note that continuing to build economic and trade ties will be key to addressing all of these areas. The progress of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the entry into force of the Japan-U.K. Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement have contributed to the establishment of a free and fair economic order. As this year’s chair of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Commission, Japan will lead the discussions for the steady implementation and expansion of the TPP. As shown in the leadership that Japan is assuming, we will continue to be proactive on the trade front as well.  China’s growing economic and military influence is an important part of this changing landscape, but our approach, including our growing partnership with the Quad, is not directed toward any specific country. Our strategic goal has always been to maintain the peace and prosperity of the entire region. In this regard, the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance has never been greater.  VOA: China, or the People’s Republic of China governed by the Chinese Communist Party, has been described as an adversary by the last U.S. administration and a competitor by the current one; rivalry between Washington and Beijing has been cast as a rivalry between democracy and autocracy. The European Union describes its ties with Beijing as one of “simultaneously (in different policy areas) a cooperation partner, a negotiation partner, an economic competitor and a systemic rival.” How does Japan see China/the PRC? TOMITA: While China is a growing topic in Washington, D.C., these days, I can assure you that as a country situated nearby, China is always a big presence for Japan. With the world’s second-largest economy, and a population of 1.4 billion, I think that China actually has the capacity and the responsibility to make positive contributions to efforts to solve global issues.  I therefore think it is in everyone’s interest to have stable relations with China. Having said that, we have to build that relationship on the basis of frank and open discussion, so we have to be honest with our Chinese friends about our concerns with certain aspects of their behavior, including trade practices, and the human rights situations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. From Japan’s perspective, it is particularly troubling to see their maritime practices, which attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in the region.  I think our approach to China has been very consistent. We are seeking a stable relationship with China, but at the same time, will continue to be very clear about our concerns. And as I mentioned before, this is one of the areas where a multilateral approach will be critical: Japan isn’t alone in navigating our relationship with China, any more than the U.S. is.  VOA: U.S. allies with both Japan and the Republic of Korea and consistently calls for Japan and ROK to work more closely together, toward shared strategic goals in the region and beyond. You served as Japan’s ambassador to ROK before coming to Washington. In your view, do Japan and ROK share enough common strategic goals in the region and beyond to exercise the political will to put history behind, to address the trauma from wartime to a satisfactory degree, and work more closely together? TOMITA: Before I came to Washington, D.C., this year, I was the Japanese ambassador to the Republic of Korea, and with that experience in mind, I can assure you that the ROK is an important neighbor which shares democratic values with Japan. We believe that the trilateral Japan-U.S.-ROK relationship is key to the peace and stability of the region, and we will continue to engage with our Korean friends for the maintenance of trilateral solidarity and coordination on issues like North Korea.  I think many Americans who read updates from the region would be surprised by the extremely high levels of exchange that flourish between our two countries. From a deep economic relationship to people-to-people and cultural exchanges, the ties between Japanese and Koreans are actually very robust, although currently constrained due to COVID-19.  However, it is fair to say that Japan and ROK are going through a difficult patch due to a few outstanding issues. These issues originate from some recent Korean court decisions that are not in conformity with Japan-ROK agreements and the principles of international law. My answer to your question would be yes, Japan and ROK share so many common strategic goals in the region. But we must say that what is at stake at the moment is the very basis of our diplomatic relations in the postwar era. We would like to protect the foundation on which we have developed our relations, and this is why we are asking the Korean government to take firm action to prevent these issues from damaging our overall relationship. 
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The United States is renewing a call that all nations including the U.S. and China “must raise their ambitions” on carbon neutrality, as officials from the world’s two largest emitters held talks in Shanghai on Thursday.U.S. officials and analysts say Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s consultations with his Chinese counterparts this week are paving the way for next week’s virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, but caution against a quick breakthrough.“We must insist Beijing do more to reduce emissions and help tackle the worldwide climate crisis,” said a State Department spokesperson who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.The spokesperson added China “is not yet on a path that will allow the world to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”“Of course, it’s not going to be easy,” said Jane Nakano, a senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).Nakano said Thursday that many countries, not just the U.S., “are hoping to see much more clear articulation [on] how China plans on reducing its emissions level.”In Beijing, officials gave few details on Kerry’s talks with China’s special envoy on climate change, Xie Zhenhua.”I don’t have any information to offer,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Thursday.Chinese President Xi Jinping is among the 40 world leaders invited to attend the climate summit on April 22-23.The invitation comes as relations between Beijing and Washington are at their most strained for decades because of clashes over Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, regional security and China’s economic coercion of U.S. allies.In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Kerry said the U.S. is not wrapping the climate issue into talks on other topics that the U.S. and China disagree on.”We’re not trading something to do with the planet and health and security for something else that’s more of a political or ideological difference or a practical difference in the marketplace,” said Kerry.Some analysts say the Biden administration is so far separating its concerns about climate change from the region’s key issues such as China’s reported human rights violations and increasing territorial aggression.“I see no evidence of” the U.S. compromising its geopolitical competition with China while seeking a cooperation on climate change, said Mike Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at CSIS and a former White House National Security Council staffer.Green said he is not ruling out a possible pull-aside virtual meeting between Biden and Xi.“We have a big agenda with China,” Green said Thursday. “My guess is probably that there will be a pull-aside” virtual meeting in a businesslike fashion.
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Cambodia began a coronavirus lockdown Thursday in Phnom Penh and a satellite district of the capital in a bid to contain a spike in coronavirus cases in a country that up until recently had largely managed to contain infections.
 
Under the lockdown, which Prime Minister Hun Sen announced late Wednesday, most people are banned from leaving home except for going to work, to buy food or for medical treatment.
 
Police manning checkpoints Thursday in Phnom Penh asked motorists to show work documents and identity cards in order to pass, television footage on local media showed.
 
In a voice message posted on his official Facebook page, Hun Sen warned that Cambodia was on the brink of “death valley” and urged people to work together to avoid calamity.
 
“The purpose of the lockdown is to combat the spread of COVID-19 and this closure is not a way to make people die or suffer,” he said.
 
The Southeast Asian country still has one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but an outbreak that started in late February saw cases spike almost 10-fold to 4,874 within two months and the first deaths recorded with 36 fatalities.
 
Hours before the lockdown, Hun Sen’s message was leaked on social media, prompted panic buying of food and other goods in shops by residents in Phnom Penh and the nearby Takhmau area, where a lockdown also has been imposed.
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Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Friday will become the first foreign leader to visit the White House since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.The meeting underscores the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance, especially as the countries’ shared rival, China, grows in strength and aggressiveness.Since taking office last year, Suga’s government has at times taken a slightly more critical stance toward China, calling out Beijing’s human rights abuses and incursions into disputed areas of the East and South China seas.It represents a slight recalibration of Japan’s relationship with China, its longtime rival and largest trading partner. However, many analysts expect Suga to refrain from overly antagonizing Beijing during his meeting with Biden.“There is unease in some Japanese policy circles about being too forward-leaning in countering China and sacrificing the carefully orchestrated rapprochement initiated a few years ago,” said Mireya Solis, who focuses on East Asia at the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based research and analysis organization.Ahead of Suga’s visit, China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry warned Japan against “being misled by some countries holding biased views against China.” Earlier this month, China also sent a naval strike group near Okinawa, where the U.S. has troops — a signal Beijing is prepared to counter the U.S.-Japan alliance.Japan hosts approximately 55,000 U.S. troops. The two sides routinely describe their alliance as the “cornerstone” of peace and stability in Asia.Biden, who took office in January, has focused on revitalizing the U.S.-Japan alliance, as well as U.S. involvement in multilateral institutions, which were often criticized or shunned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.Koji Tomita, Japan’s ambassador to the United States, said Tokyo “fully supports President Biden‘s resolve to revert to multinationalism and to restore leadership in the international community.”In an interview with VOA, Tomita also said it is critical to take a multilateral approach toward China.“We are seeking a stable relationship with China, but at the same time, will continue to be very clear about our concerns,” he said.Specifically, Tomita mentioned Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, its abuses against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, and its unfair trade practices.“From Japan’s perspective, it is particularly troubling to see their maritime practices which attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in the region,” he added.Japan’s new approachTaiwan — the self-ruled island that China views as its own — has emerged as another flashpoint. Some Japanese leaders have suggested cooperating more closely with the United States to discourage China’s intimidation of Taiwan.James D.J. Brown, an associate professor at Temple University in Tokyo, said Suga likely feels pressure from the parts of Japanese society and political circles that sympathize with Taiwan.“I think that if [Suga] is seen as avoiding taking a tough stance on China, he might have to worry not only about getting criticism from the United States but also potentially from within his own party,” Brown said.There’s a limit to how far Suga will go in criticizing China, though, Brown said.“So I think overall Japan is … deeply uncomfortable with being urged to take a stronger stance” against China, he said.“They’re very happy in Tokyo for the United States to do that, but they’re reluctant to do so themselves because they recognize that China both economically, militarily, has a lot of ways and a lot of leverage that they can use to make things very uncomfortable for Japan.”However, Japan’s new approach is encouraging to many U.S. lawmakers, who have become increasingly hawkish on China. Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty, who until 2019 was ambassador to Japan, said he believes U.S. allies are beginning to see the threat posed by China.“I think what’s happening is the rest of Asia is seeing this. I think the rest of Asia is going to be drawn toward our model. That’s my hope,” Hagerty told VOA.“I want to see us bring them all into the fold and demonstrate that our democratic values, and that our free-market principles are the best possible posture to undertake,” he added.
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When the pallbearers brought Phil McLean’s coffin into the chapel, there were gasps before a wave of laughter rippled through the hundreds of mourners.The coffin was a giant cream doughnut.”It overshadowed the sadness and the hard times in the last few weeks,” said his widow, Debra. “The final memory in everyone’s mind was of that doughnut, and Phil’s sense of humor.”The doughnut was the latest creation by Phil’s cousin Ross Hall, who runs a business in Auckland, New Zealand, called Dying Art, which custom builds colorful coffins.Other creations by Hall include a sailboat, a firetruck, a chocolate bar and Lego blocks. There have been glittering coffins covered in fake jewels, a casket inspired by the movie The Matrix, and plenty of coffins depicting people’s favorite beaches and holiday spots.”There are people who are happy with a brown mahogany box and that’s great,” said Hall. “But if they want to shout it out, I’m here to do it for them.”The idea first came to Hall about 15 years ago when he was writing a will and contemplating his own death.”How do I want to go out?” he thought to himself, deciding it wouldn’t be like everyone else. “So I put in my will that I want a red box with flames on it.”Six months later, Hall, whose other business is a signage and graphics company, decided to get serious. He approached a few funeral directors who looked at him with interest and skepticism. But over time, the idea took hold.Hall begins with special-made blank coffins and uses fiberboard and plywood to add details. A latex digital printer is used for the designs. Some orders are particularly complex, like the sailboat, which included a keel and rudder, cabin, sails, even metal railings and pulleys.This photo provided by Ross Hall, shows caskets shaped as Lego and a space ship in Auckland, New Zealand, on Feb 25, 2021. (Ross Hall via AP)Depending on the design, the coffins retail for between about 3,000 and 7,500 New Zealand dollars ($2,100 and $5,400).Hall said the tone of funerals has changed markedly over recent years.”People now think it’s a celebration of life rather than a mourning of death,” he said. And they’ve been willing to throw out stuffy conventions in favor of getting something unique.But a doughnut?Debra McLean said she and her late husband, who was 68 when he died in February, used to tour the country in their motorhome, and Phil loved comparing cream doughnuts in every small town, considering himself something of a connoisseur.He considered a good doughnut one that was crunchy on the outside, airy in the middle, and definitely made with fresh cream.This photo provided by Ross Hall shows a cream doughnut-shaped coffin for the funeral of Phil McLean outside a church in Tauranga, New Zealand, on Feb 17, 2021. (Ross Hall via AP)After Phil was diagnosed with bowel cancer, he had time to think about his funeral and, along with his wife and cousin, came up with the idea for the doughnut coffin. Debra said they even had 150 doughnuts delivered to the funeral in Tauranga from Phil’s favorite bakery in Whitianga, more than 160 kilometers away.Hall said his coffins are biodegradable and are usually buried or cremated along with the deceased. The only one he’s ever gotten back is his cousin’s, he said, because he used polystyrene and shaping foam, which is not environmentally friendly.Phil was switched to a plain coffin for his cremation, and Hall said he’ll keep the doughnut coffin forever. For now, it remains in the back of his white 1991 Cadillac hearse.As for his own funeral? Hall said he’s changed his mind about those red flames. He’s emailed his kids saying he wants to be buried in a clear coffin wearing nothing but a leopard-pattern G-string.”The kids say they’re not going,” he said with a laugh. 
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Back-to-back military exercises by the United States and China in a contested Asian sea this past week are shaping as a new normal as Beijing seeks control over the waterway and U.S. forces want it open for international use, experts say.The U.S. Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group carried out “expeditionary strike force operations” in the South China Sea on Friday, the U.S. Pacific Fleet commander said in a statement online. Their exercises “took place in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific”, the statement says.A day later, the Chinese navy’s Liaoning aircraft carrier task group “reportedly” entered the sea from near Taiwan, the Beijing-based news outlet Global Times reported. It suggested the Liaoning group was doing “drills” in the sea.While the close timing and unusually large scale of the U.S. exercises caught attention in Asia, where other countries hope to get along with both superpowers, analysts say their military activities in the South China Sea are becoming ominously routine and will keep happening.“It’s always shadow boxing between these two powers,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “It’s more like both sides signaling ‘I’m here and you can see me, I see you’ kind of thing, but they’re probably not coming to blows. I think they will be careful about that.”Chinese vessels will appear “increasingly more often” in sync with China’s “future aircraft carrier development program”, the state-controlled Global Times said, citing an analyst. A second Chinese aircraft carrier, which entered service in 2019, is based at a port on China’s South China Sea coast.FILE – This photo taken Jan. 2, 2017, shows a Chinese navy formation during military drills in the South China Sea. On Jan. 27, 2021,U.S. Navy ships have reached the South China Sea twice since President Joe Biden took office in January following 10 “Freedom of Navigation” operations in the sea last year.Chinese military vessels are turning up more often as the government in Beijing claims 90% of the sea and hopes to control that waterway as well as the East China Sea before expanding outward, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Taiwan’s Tamkang University. He said Chinese military officials had set that goal in the 1980s.Both seas fall within the first island chain, meaning islands such as Taiwan and the Japanese archipelago that extend from Russia to the Malay Peninsula. China would try next, Huang said, for more influence in the second island chain: the southeastern outlying islands of Japan and the Mariana Islands.“I think the capability that they are striving for or looking at is to have firm sea control within the first island chain and they will have power projection capability to the area between the first and second island chains,” Huang said.China aims now to “test the limits of the first island chain,” Araral said.Officials in Washington hope their passages through the South China Sea inspire confidence in five other governments that claim all or parts of it, Araral said. Those are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea is prized for natural resources including gas, oil and fisheries.China cites historical usage records to defend today’s claim, including tracts inside the 370-kilometer-wide exclusive economic zones of other countries.Beijing has slowly occupied contested islets since the 1950s, sometimes with reclaimed land. Today its holdings support airstrips, hangars and radar systems. China has the strongest armed forces among the six claimants, prompting others to look toward the United States for support.U.S. forces are maintaining the “tempo” of their military exercises to show friendly Asia Pacific governments they are “on guard,” Huang said. Beijing and Washington have vied over the past year for the support of Southeast Asian maritime claimants – China through economic support and the United States by offering military aid. Washington does not claim the South China Sea.U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu give a statement after their meeting in Jerusalem on April 12, 2021.On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Philippine counterpart Delfin Loreanzana by phone to propose measures for deeper defense cooperation, such as “enhancing situational awareness of threats in the South China Sea,” the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement online.The two discussed the South China Sea, including a group of “maritime militia vessels” that China has allowed to moor at the disputed Whitsun Reef.In Malaysia, the passage of American vessels already seems normal, but the increase in Chinese activity will take some getting used to, said Shariman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia.Malaysia probably won’t protest unless they interfere with Malaysian offshore gas and oil drilling, he said. Oil and gas make up 15% to 40% of government revenue.“The Chinese presence is (a) relatively new phenomenon for us, but I think we should take it as something that they are going to do from time to time.” Lockman said. 
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The Free Burma Rangers — a multi-ethnic humanitarian group that has aided oppressed ethnic groups, mainly in Myanmar — and reported on the conflicts for more than 25 years has increased aid in the border regions of Karen state, site of the recent air strikes by the Myanmar army. The group has worked in other countries including Sudan, Syria, Iraq and Kurdistan. From Thailand, Steve Sandford has more. Camera: Steve Sandford
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U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will travel to China this week to discuss international efforts to tackle global warming, seeking to press his counterparts to make ambitious emissions reduction targets despite tension in the U.S.-China relationship.The U.S. State Department said Kerry would travel to Shanghai and Seoul, South Korea, for talks Wednesday through Saturday, ahead of President Joe Biden’s virtual summit with world leaders on climate change next week.Kerry will “discuss raising global climate ambition,” during his visits, the State Department said.A source familiar with the plans said Kerry was due to arrive in Shanghai late on Wednesday and hold meetings on Thursday and Friday.Kerry’s trip comes after an earlier summit in Alaska between U.S. and Chinese officials led to fiery interactions that illustrated the depth of tension between the world’s two largest economies at the beginning of Biden’s tenure in office.”He’ll be focused on discussing climate and how we can work with leaders around the region to get control of … the climate crisis,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Monday about Kerry.The former secretary of state, whom Biden selected to represent the United States in international climate talks, will seek to find common ground on climate change with China’s Xie Zhenhua.Kerry has been urging countries around the world to set ambitious targets for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. The United States is set to announce its own new target for emissions cuts by 2030 in the coming week.Biden’s Earth Day summit, scheduled for April 22-23, will be a chance for the White House to reassert U.S. leadership on climate change. Biden, a Democrat, brought the United States back into the Paris climate accord after his predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump, withdrew in 2017.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Tuesday that the semiautonomous Chinese territory’s legislative elections will take place in December, more than a year after they were postponed by authorities citing public health risks from the coronavirus pandemic.Lam also said that laws will be amended so that inciting voters not to vote or to cast blank or invalid votes will be made illegal, although voters themselves are free to boycott voting or cast votes as they wish.”When a person willfully obstructs or prevents any person from voting at an election, we will consider it corrupt conduct,” said Lam.Lam said that the elections will take place on Dec. 19. The elections were initially slated to be held last September.Lam was speaking a day ahead of the first reading of draft amendments to various laws in the city’s legislature, to accommodate Beijing’s planned changes to the city’s electoral system.Beijing in March announced changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system, expanding the number of seats in the legislature while reducing the number of directly elected seats from 35 to 20.The move is part of a two-phase effort to rein in political protest and opposition in Hong Kong, which is part of China but has had a more liberal political system as a former British colony. China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong last year and is following up this year with a revamp of the electoral process.The crackdown comes in the wake of months of pro-democracy protests in 2019 that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets and turned violent as the government resisted the movement’s demands.In the current 70-member legislature, voters elect half the members and the other half are chosen by constituencies representing various professions and interest groups. Many of the constituencies lean pro-Beijing, ensuring that wing a majority in the legislature.The new body will have 20 elected members, 30 chosen by the constituencies and 40 by an Election Committee which also chooses the city’s leader.The committee, which will be expanded from 1,200 to 1,500 members, is dominated by supporters of the central government in Beijing.A new, separate body will also be set up to review the qualifications of candidates for office in Hong Kong to ensure that the city is governed by “patriots,” in the language of the central government.Elections for the Election Committee, which will choose the city’s leader and 40 lawmakers, will be held on Sept. 19. Elections for the chief executive will take place on March 27, 2022, Lam said Tuesday.
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The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Michele Bachelet, warns Myanmar could be headed toward a bloody civil war like Syria unless the violence is brought under control. Bachelet is calling on all states with influence, especially Myanmar’s neighbors, to apply concerted pressure on the ruling military junta to end its campaign of repression and slaughter of its people. FILE – U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends a news conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Dec. 9, 2020.She said many of the grave human rights violations being committed by Myanmar’s military might amount to crimes against humanity and must be stopped. Bachelet’s spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, said the high commissioner fears a continuation of these crimes could tear the country apart and lead to a civil war. “The high commissioner states that there are clear echoes of Syria in 2011,” Shamdasani said. “There too, we saw peaceful protests met with unnecessary and clearly disproportionate force. The state’s brutal, persistent repression of its own people led to some individuals taking up arms, followed by a downward and rapidly expanding spiral of violence all across the country.” Syria’s decadelong civil war has had disastrous consequences. The United Nations estimates 400,000 people have died, 11.7 million are displaced both within Syria and as refugees, and more than 11 million people need international aid to survive. Shamdasani said credible reports indicate the past weekend in Myanmar was particularly deadly. She said the country’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, attacked civilians with rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire, killing at least 82 people. Some people are using makeshift or primitive weapons in self-defense, she said, and clashes between the military and ethnic armed groups in Kachin, Shan and Kayn states are intensifying. FILE – This screengrab provided via AFPTV and taken from a broadcast by Myitkyina News Journal on March 27, 2021, shows security forces cracking down on protesters during a demonstration against the military coup in Myanmar’s Kachin state.”As arrests continue, with at least 3,080 people currently detained, there are reports that 23 people have been sentenced to death following secret trials — including four protesters and 19 others who were accused of political and criminal offenses. The mass arrests have forced hundreds of people to go into hiding,” Shamdasani said. She added that the country’s economic, education and health infrastructure are at the point of collapse. Millions of people have lost their livelihoods and COVID-19 measures have been brought to a standstill, she said. Bachelet has called the situation untenable. She said nations must cut off the supply of arms and finances to the military leadership that allow it to kill and seriously violate its people’s human rights. 
 
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The Myanmar army is attacking journalists and increasing censorship in its deadly crackdown against opponents of the February coup. Five major media groups have been banned and the internet has been shut down, but Burmese journalists are not giving up. For VOA, Steve Sanford reports from Mae Sot, Thailand.Video editor: Henry Hernandez
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Inspired by a growing trend in the U.S., some villagers in Indonesia have set up free libraries to foster the love of reading and learning among local children.  As VOA’s Vina Mubtadi reports, there were some unique challenges to overcome in Indonesia to make the project work.Camera: Vina Mubtadi
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Anti-coup demonstrators across Myanmar turned the country’s traditional New Year’s celebration into a quiet protest against the military junta Tuesday, as the United Nations warned the situation could deteriorate into “full-blown conflict.”
 
The February 1 coup that removed de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her civilian government from power has prompted people in Myanmar to forgo the usual rituals of the five-day Thingyan festival, including raucous water fights in the streets. Protesters instead painted pro-democracy symbols and slogans on the traditional flower pots displayed during Thingyan, including the three-fingered salute that has come to symbolize Myanmar’s resistance movement.
 
The coup has sparked daily mass demonstrations across Myanmar demanding the return of Suu Kyi and her elected government to power.   
 
The junta has responded with an increasingly violent and deadly crackdown against the protesters.  The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a nongovernmental monitoring organization, estimates that more than 700 people have been killed since the coup, including more than 80 protesters killed Friday in the southern city of Bago, located more than 70 kilometers northeast of the country’s largest city, Yangon.
 
The violence prompted U.N. human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet to issue a statement Monday warning that the situation in Myanmar is “heading towards a full-blown conflict” similar to the current bloody civil war in Syria.  
 
“Statements of condemnation, and limited targeted sanctions, are clearly not enough,” Bachelet continued. “States with influence need to urgently apply concerted pressure on the military in Myanmar to halt the commission of grave human rights violations and possible crimes against humanity against the people.”   
 
Suu Kyi has been detained since the coup, and is facing six criminal charges, the most serious of them a charge of breaking the country’s colonial-era secrets law that could put her in prison for 14 years if convicted.
 
The military cited widespread fraud in last November’s general election — which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide — as its reasons for overthrowing Suu Kyi’s government.  
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Japan’s government decided Tuesday to start releasing massive amounts of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years — an option fiercely opposed by local fishermen and residents.The decision, long speculated but delayed for years due to safety concerns and protests, came at a meeting of Cabinet ministers who endorsed the ocean release as the best option.The accumulating water has been stored in tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged its reactors and their cooling water became contaminated and began leaking.The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., says its storage capacity will be full late next year.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the ocean release was the “most realistic” option and that disposing the water is “unavoidable” for the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant, which is expected to take decades.TEPCO and government officials say tritium, which is not harmful in small amounts, cannot be removed from the water, but all other selected radionuclides can be reduced to levels allowed for release. Some scientists say the long-term impact on marine life from low-dose exposure to such large volumes of water is unknown.Under the basic plan adopted by the ministers, TEPCO will start releasing the water in about two years after building a facility under the regulatory authority’s safety requirements. It said the disposal of the water cannot be postponed further and is necessary to improve the environment surrounding the plant so residents can live there safely.TEPCO says its water storage capacity of 1.37 million tons will be full around the fall of 2022. Also, the area now filled with storage tanks will have to be freed up for building new facilities that will be needed for removing melted fuel debris from inside the reactors, a process expected to start in coming years.In the decade since the tsunami disaster, water meant to cool the nuclear material has constantly escaped from the damaged primary containment vessels into the basements of the reactor buildings. To make up for the loss, more water has been pumped into the reactors to continue to cool the melted fuel. Water is also pumped out and treated, part of which is recycled as cooling water, and the remainder stored in 1,020 tanks now holding 1.25 million tons of radioactive water.Those tanks that occupy a large space at the plant complex interfere with the safe and steady progress of the decommissioning, Economy and Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said. The tanks also could be damaged and leak in case of another powerful earthquake or tsunami, the report said.Releasing the water to the ocean was described as the most realistic method by a government panel that for nearly seven years had discussed how to dispose of the water without further harming Fukushima’s image, fisheries and other businesses. The report it prepared last year mentioned evaporation as a less desirable option.About 70% of the water in the tanks exceeds allowable discharge limits for contamination but will be filtered again and diluted with seawater before it is released, the report says. According to a preliminary estimate, gradual releases of water will take about 30 years but will be completed before the plant is fully decommissioned.Japan will abide by international rules for a release, obtain support from the International Atomic Energy Agency and others, and ensure disclosure of data and transparency to gain understanding of the international community, the report said. China and South Korea have raised serious concern about the discharge of the water and its potential impact.The government has said it will do the utmost to support local fisheries, and the report said TEPCO would compensate for damages if they occur despite those efforts.Kajiyama is set to visit Fukushima on Tuesday afternoon to meet with local town and fisheries officials to explain the decision. He said he will continue to make efforts to gain their understanding over the next two years. 
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The Mekong is one of the world’s great rivers — a 5,000-kilometer waterway threading from China through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.  However, dams have subverted the ecosystem, bringing drought during the monsoon season and high waters when it should be dry. That has forever changed the lives of those who depend on the river for food and work in northeastern Thailand, a poor region bordering Laos and Cambodia. Vijitra Duangdee reports for VOA news, from Nong Khai, Thailand.Camera: Black Squirrel Productions  
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Myanmar’s ruling military junta filed a sixth charge against deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday as demonstrations continued against the February 1 coup.
 
Min Min Soe, Suu Kyi’s lawyer, told reporters that his client was charged a second time for violating the country’s COVID-19 protocols during a court appearance via videoconference.  Min Min Soe says Suu Kyi asked the court to allow her to meet with her lawyers in person during Monday’s session.   
 
The 75-year-old Suu Kyi is already facing charges including having six handheld radios in her possession, the most serious of them a charge of breaking the country’s colonial-era secrets law that could put her in prison for 14 years if convicted.
 
Suu Kyi and several members of her civilian government have been detained since the military took control more than two months ago, saying there was widespread fraud in last November’s general election which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide.   
 
The coup has sparked daily mass demonstrations across Myanmar demanding the return of Suu Kyi and her elected government to power.   
 
The junta has responded with ever-increasing violent and deadly crackdown against the demonstrators.  The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a nongovernmental monitoring organization, estimates that more than 700 people have been killed by the junta since the peaceful protests began, including more than 80 protesters killed Friday in the southern city of Bago, located more than 70 kilometers northeast of the country’s largest city, Yangon.
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Hideki Matsuyama won the 85th Masters in dramatic fashion Sunday, holding off Xander Schauffele to become the first Japanese man to capture a major golf title.Carrying the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, Matsuyama calmly grinded out clutch pars and struck for crucial birdies in a pressure-packed march at Augusta National, hanging on over the final holes for a historic one-stroke victory.Matsuyama took the green jacket symbolic of Masters supremacy, a top prize of $2.07 million (1.74 million euros) and a place for the ages in Japanese sports history.”I’m really happy,” he said through a translator. “Hopefully I’ll be a pioneer in this and many other Japanese will follow. I’m happy to open the floodgate and many more will follow me.”After seeing his seven-stroke lead with seven holes remaining shaved to two shots with three to go, Matsuyama watched Schauffele’s ball end up in the water off the 16th tee on the way to a triple-bogey disaster.”I felt like I gave him a little bit of a run and made a little bit of excitement for the tournament until I met a watery grave there,” Schauffele said. “I’ll be able to sleep tonight. It might be hard but I’ll be OK.”Matsuyama settled for a bogey but closed with par at 17 and a bogey at 18 to fire a one-over-par 73 and finish 72 holes on 10-under 278.”My nerves really didn’t start on the second nine,” Matsuyama said. “It was from the start today to the very last putt.”American Will Zalatoris was second in his Masters debut on 279 after a closing 70 with U.S. three-time major winner Jordan Spieth and American Schauffele sharing third on 281.”It was a fun week,” Zalatoris said. “I know I can play with the best players in the world.”Matsuyama became only the second Asian man to win a major title after South Korea’s Yang Yong-eun at the 2009 PGA Championship.No prior Japanese player had finished better than fourth at the Masters.Japan’s two previous major golf titles belonged to women, Chako Higuchi from the 1977 LPGA Championship and Hinako Shibuno at the 2019 Women’s British Open. 
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Two South Korean electric vehicle battery manufacturers said Sunday they have settled an extended trade dispute that will allow one of them to make batteries in the southern U.S. state of Georgia.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has pushed for more electric vehicles in the United States as part of his clean-energy agenda, called the trade settlement “a win for American workers and the American auto industry.”
The agreement between LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation ended the need for Biden to intervene in the dispute by a Sunday night deadline.
In a joint statement, the companies said SK will provide LG Energy with a total of $1.8 billion and an undisclosed royalty. SK has contracted to make batteries for an electric Ford F-150 truck and an electric Volkswagen SUV.
“We have decided to settle and to compete in an amicable way, all for the future of the U.S. and South Korean electric vehicle battery industries,” the leaders of the two companies, Jun Kim of SK, and Jong Hyun Kim of LG Energy, said in the statement.
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who at Biden’s request had initiated negotiations between the two companies, said the settlement “has saved the battery plant in Commerce, Georgia, ensuring thousands of jobs, billions in future investment, and that Georgia will be a leader in electric vehicle battery production for years to come.”
The dispute had threatened a $2.6 billion factory SK Innovation is building in Georgia.
Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, called the settlement “fantastic news for northeast Georgia and our state’s growing electric vehicle industry.”
The U.S. has more than 279 million gas-powered vehicles, and the demand for switching to electric vehicles is expected to increase sharply in the next 15 years.
The Biden administration had until Sunday to decide whether to veto a ruling by the International Trade Commission in favor of LG in an intellectual property case. The ruling had threatened SK with a ban on supplying batteries in the U.S. 
 
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A strong earthquake on Indonesia’s main island of Java killed eight people, including a woman whose motorcycle was hit by falling rocks, and damaged more than 1,300 buildings, officials said Sunday. It did not trigger a tsunami.The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.0 quake struck off the island’s southern coast at 2 p.m. Saturday. It was centered 45 kilometers south of Sumberpucung town of Malang District in East Java province, at a depth of 82 kilometers.Rahmat Triyono, the head of Indonesia’s earthquake and tsunami center, said the undersea tremblor did not have the potential to cause a tsunami. Still, he urged people to stay away from slopes of soil or rocks that have the potential for landslides.This was the second deadly disaster to hit Indonesia this week, after Tropical Cyclone Seroja caused a severe downpour Sunday that killed at least 174 people and left 48 still missing in East Nusa Tenggara province. Some victims were buried in either mudslides or solidified lava from a volcanic eruption in November, while others were swept away by flash floods. Thousands of homes with damaged.Saturday’s quake caused falling rocks to kill a woman on a motorcycle and badly injured her husband in East Java’s Lumajang district, said Raditya Jati, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.He said about 1,189 homes and 150 public facilities, including schools, hospitals and government offices, were damaged. Rescuers retrieved four bodies from the rubble in Lumajang’s Kali Uling village. Three people were also confirmed killed by the quake in Malang district.Television reports showed people running in panic from malls and buildings in several cities in East Java province.Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.In January, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 105 people and injured nearly 6,500, while more than 92,000 were displaced, after striking Mamuju and Majene districts in West Sulawesi province.
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Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are living in renewed fear after deadly fires broke out more than 30 times in the southeastern Cox’s Bazar district in recent weeks.Rights activists said these fires are part of a “very worrying trend” in the overcrowded, sprawling shantytown that is home to dozens of interconnected makeshift refugee settlements.“Every day and night Rohingyas across the camp are living in fear that fire will break out again somewhere in the camp,” a Cox’s Bazar-based Rohingya rights activist who goes by Hussain told VOA. Many Rohingya use only one name.“Fires are breaking out time and again,” he said, “at least 32 times in different parts of the Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar in the past 17 days, after the devastating March 22 fire.”The rights activist said the perpetrators in recent fires were caught and turned over to authorities.“We caught seven or eight people red-handed while they were setting ablaze some shacks,” he said. “They were all handed over to police.”About 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees have been living in the bamboo and tarpaulin shanties in the congested Cox’s Bazar district since fleeing military clampdowns in neighboring Myanmar in recent years, according to the United Nations. There are 34 encampments within in the district where Rohingya refugees have settled, which are collectively identified as one expansive settlement, including the Balukhali and nearby Kutupalong refugee camps, according to the International Organization for Migration.On March 22, a fire ripped through the Balukhali area of the camp, killing at least 15 refugees, authorities said. Sanjeev Kafley, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation head in Bangladesh, told Reuters that more than 17,000 shelters were destroyed, and thousands of people were displaced in the area because of the fire. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that the fire injured around 550 refugees and left more than 48,000 homeless.People inspect the debris after a fire in a makeshift market near a Rohingya refugee camp in Kutupalong, Bangladesh, April 2, 2021.Last week, a statement from the UNHCR in Bangladesh said, “Multiple small fires have been reported across camps in Kutupalong and Nayapara [of Cox’s Bazar] in [the] last week. This is a very worrying trend. Refugees have managed to put out the fires quickly with only a limited number of families affected.”While several thousand victims of the March 22 fire remain without shelter, more incidents of fire have been reported, leading refugees to live in constant fear. On April 2, at least three people were killed and more than 20 shops were gutted in a makeshift market near Kutupalong refugee camp, Part of Balukhali Rohingya Refugee camp, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, as it looks now, two weeks after a devastating fire ravaged the area. With the support of aid agencies and others, the refugees have rebuilt most of the shanties. (Nur Islam/VOA)Abdus Shukur, 45, another refugee, from Kutupalong, said he believes the fires were caused by arson.“Some people are secretly sprinkling a white inflammable powder on the roofs of our shacks. Some others are setting them on fire,” Shukur told VOA. “It is clear, they are not accidents. Some people are setting fire to the shacks as part of a conspiracy.”The suspected perpetrators, he said, may be conspiring to scare Rohingya refugees from Cox’s Bazar by repeatedly setting fire to their makeshift homes.”They want more Rohingya to move to Bhasan Char,” he said, referring to a remote Bay of Bengal island, “or they want all Rohingya to go back to Myanmar.”Bangladesh has set up a facility on Bhasan Char, where it wants to relocate at least 100,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Cox’s Bazar. A few thousand Rohingya have moved to the island in recent months but most are unwilling to relocate there, saying that the island is prone to flooding during high tide and largely disconnected from the mainland.A day after the March 22 fire, Bangladesh said it would investigate the cause of the blaze, but authorities so far have not said what triggered the devastating fire.Several senior government officials did not respond to questions from VOA asking about the cause of the fires. However, one midlevel police officer said that the cause is rivalry among feuding Rohingya criminal gangs.“There is rivalry among different Rohingya anti-social groups,” the officer told VOA on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “Members of one group are setting fire to the shanties belonging to its rival groups or their supporters.”However, many Rohingya refugees living in the Cox’s Bazar disagree.“At least three of those who were caught red-handed were [non-Rohingya] Bangladeshis,” said a Cox’s Bazar-based Rohingya refugee who withheld his name for fear of reprisal by police and locals. “We strongly believe the masterminds behind the fires are those who view the Rohingya as their enemy in Bangladesh and want them to flee the camps of Cox’s Bazar.“Those masterminds are using some hired anti-socials, who are Bangladeshis as well as Rohingyas, to carry out the fire attacks on us,” he added. “The fires cannot be rooted to any Rohingya conspiracy, we believe.”
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Myanmar security forces killed more than 80 anti-junta demonstrators Thursday and Friday, according to reporting Saturday, as activists demanding the restoration of the ousted civilian government again took to the streets in the southeast of the country.
 
Myanmar Now news, witnesses, and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the killings occurred when government troops fired grenades at protesters in the city of Bago, about 65 kilometers northeast of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
 
Myanmar Now reported 82 people were killed while the AAPP, a local monitoring group that tallies deaths in the country, reported that “over 80 anti-coup protesters were killed by security forces in Bago on Friday.”
 
The United Nations said in a statement Saturday it has received reports that heavy artillery was used against civilians in Bago and that injured people were not receiving medical treatment.
 
“The violence must end immediately,” the U.N. statement said. “We call on the security forces to allow medical teams to treat the wounded.”Anti-coup protesters march in Mandalay, Myanmar, April 10, 2021. (Credit: Citizen journalist via VOA Burmese Service)An alliance of ethnic armies opposed to the new military government reportedly killed at least 10 police officers when it attacked a police station Saturday in the village of Naungmon.
 
According to Reuters, the local media outlet Shan News reported at least 10 officers were killed, while the Shwe Phee Myay News Agency said 14 lives were lost. The military government did not immediately comment on the reported killings.
 
Undaunted by the shutdown and the government’s deadly crackdown on demonstrators, protesters reportedly returned to the streets Saturday in the town of Launglone and in the neighboring city of Dawei.
 
AAPP previously has said 618 people have died since the February 1 coup, when the military removed the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, detaining former de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. Martial law has been imposed in townships across Myanmar.
 
Suu Kyi led Myanmar since its first open democratic election in 2015, but Myanmar’s military contested last November’s election results, claiming widespread electoral fraud, largely without evidence. 
 
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