KOLKATA — Thousands of Indian junior doctors on Monday refused to end protests over the rape and murder of a fellow medic, disrupting hospital services nearly a week after they launched a nationwide action demanding a safer workplace and swift criminal probe.

Doctors across the country have held protests and declined to see non-emergency patients following the Aug. 9 killing of the 31-year-old medic, who police say was raped and murdered at a hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata where she was a trainee.

A police volunteer has been arrested and charged with the crime. Women activists say the incident has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer from sexual violence despite tougher laws brought in after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi.

The government has urged doctors to return to duty while it sets up a committee to suggest measures to improve protection for healthcare professionals.

“Our indefinite cease-work and sit-in will continue till our demands are met,” said Dr. Aniket Mahata, a spokesperson for protesting junior doctors at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, where the incident happened.

In solidarity with the doctors, thousands of supporters of West Bengal state’s two biggest soccer clubs marched on the streets of Kolkata on Sunday evening with chants of “We want justice”.

Groups representing junior doctors in neighboring Odisha state, the capital New Delhi, and in the western state of Gujarat have also said their protests will continue.

Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told India’s Business Standard daily that workplace safety was important to raise the country’s female labour force participation rate, which was 37% in FY2022-23.

“One cannot raise that [female participation] without ensuring safety at the workplace and safety of women in getting to the workplace. That is absolutely critical,” Gopinath said in the interview published on Monday.

 
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SANDAKAN, Malaysia — Companies that import palm oil from Malaysia will be able to adopt orangutans but they will not be able to leave the country, the commodities minister said on Sunday, in a revised version of a conservation scheme announced earlier this year.

Plantations and Commodities Minister Johari Abdul Ghani also pledged to halt deforestation in Malaysia, saying 54% of the country was forested and that the level would not fall below 50%.

In May, the minister put forward a plan to send orangutans abroad as trading gifts in an effort to allay concerns about the impact on the animals’ habitat of palm oil production, which tends to involve clearing forest land.

The plan raised objections from conservation groups fearful for the welfare of the orangutans that are critically endangered.

“The animals cannot leave their natural habitats. We have to keep them here. And then we will meet the countries or the buyers of our palm oil if they want to work together to ensure that these forests can be looked after and preserved forever,” Johari told a news conference in Sabah, northern Borneo.

Conservation group WWF says the population of the orangutan, whose name means “man of the forest” in Malay, is less than 105,000 on the island of Borneo.

The “orangutan diplomacy” scheme was first made public in May after the European Union last year approved an import ban on commodities linked to deforestation.

Malaysia, the world’s second-largest producer of palm oil, which is used in anything from lipstick to pizza, described the law as discriminatory.

Johari said funds raised from companies that adopt orangutans would be distributed to non-governmental organizations and the Sabah government to monitor the forested areas where the primates live, and seek to monitor the animals’ safety and condition.

He did not give details on how much adoption would cost.

Marc Ancrenaz, scientific director of non-government organization Hutan, said he hoped the plan could fund habitat conservation work, such as building corridors between fragmented forests that are too small to sustain viable wildlife populations.
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BEIJING — China’s President Xi Jinping held talks on Monday with Vietnam’s new leader To Lam in Beijing on his first state visit since he took office, Chinese official media Xinhua said.

The meeting signals the close ties between the two communist-run neighbors, which have well-developed economic and trade relations despite the occasional boundary clashes in the energy-rich South China Sea.

China, displaying exuberance over Lam’s choosing China for his first official trip, said last week it “fully reflects the great importance he attaches to the development of ties between both parties and countries.”

Lam arrived in China’s southern province Guangzhou on Sunday for a three-day visit that would include meetings with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and other Chinese top officials.

While in Guangzhou, he visited some Chinese locations where former President Ho Chi Minh conducted revolutionary activities.

Last December, China and Vietnam signed more than a dozen agreements when Xi visited Vietnam.

The agreements, specifics of which were not announced, covered strengthening railway cooperation and development, investments in various fields and establishing communication to handle unexpected incidents in the South China Sea.

In a lengthy joint declaration, both countries said they would work on cross-border railway connectivity, naming three rail projects that included one connecting through mountainous Lao Cai in Vietnam’s northwest to the port city Haiphong and a potential one linking two coastal cities to Haiphong.

The statement mentioned continued support for both countries’ railway companies to further cooperate to improve the efficiency of Vietnamese goods transiting through China.

It also mentioned working on other projects under China’s flagship infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative, and emphasized investment cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure, energy, digital economy, green development and other fields.

China and Vietnam forged diplomatic ties in 1950 and established a comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation in 2008 that was jointly fortified five years later to extend to more shared international and regional issues of concern.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — China’s coast guard accused the Philippines of deliberately crashing one of its ships into a Chinese vessel early Monday near Sabina Shoal, a new flashpoint in the increasingly alarming territorial disputes between the countries in the South China Sea.

Two Philippine coast guard ships entered waters near the shoal, ignored the Chinese coast guard’s warning and “deliberately collided” with one of China’s boats at 3:24 a.m., a spokesperson said in a statement on the Chinese coast guard’s website.

Philippine authorities did not immediately comment on the encounter near the disputed atoll in the Spratly Islands, where overlapping claims are also made by Vietnam and Taiwan.

“The Philippine side is entirely responsible for the collision,” spokesman Gan Yu said. “We warn the Philippine side to immediately stop its infringement and provocation, otherwise it will bear all the consequences arising from that.”

Gan added China claimed “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands, known in Chinese as Nansha Islands, including Sabina Shoal and its adjacent waters. The Chinese name for Sabina Shoal is Xianbin Reef.

In a separate statement, he said the Philippine ship that was turned away from Sabina Shoal entered waters near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, ignoring the Chinese coast guard’s warnings. “The Chinese coast guard took control measures against the Philippine ship in accordance with law and regulation,” he added.

Sabina Shoal, which lies about 140 kilometers (87 miles) west of the Philippines’ western island province of Palawan, has become a new flashpoint in the territorial disputes between China and the Philippines.

The Philippine coast guard deployed one of its key patrol ships, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, to Sabina in April after Filipino scientists discovered submerged piles of crushed corals in its shallows which sparked suspicions that China may be bracing to build a structure in the atoll. The Chinese coast guard later deployed a ship to Sabina.

Sabina lies near the Philippine-occupied Second Thomas Shoal, which has been the scene of confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships and accompanying vessels since last year.

China and the Philippines reached an agreement last month to prevent further confrontations when the Philippines transports new batches of sentry forces, along with food and other supplies, to Manila’s territorial outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal, which has been closely guarded by Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships.

The Philippine navy transported food and personnel to the Second Thomas Shoal a week after the deal was reached and no incident was reported, sparking hope that tensions in the shoal would eventually ease.
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Seoul, South Korea — North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia as an unforgivable act of terror backed by Washington and the West, adding it would always stand with Russia as it seeks to protect its sovereignty, state media said Sunday.

Ukraine’s drive into Russia is a product of the anti-Russia confrontational policy of the United States, which is pushing the situation to the brink of World War III, KCNA news agency said.

The U.S. handed “astronomical” sums of lethal weapons to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the report said.

“We strongly condemn the armed attack against the Russian territory by the Zelenskyy puppet regime under the control and support of the United States and the West as an unforgivable act of aggression and terror,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement, according to KCNA.

North Korea has dramatically upgraded its ties with Russia in the past year with two summit meetings by their leaders who pledged closer cooperation in all areas.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pact in Pyongyang on a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that included a mutual defense agreement.

South Korea, Ukraine and the United States have accused North Korea of supplying artillery and missiles to Russia for use in its unprovoked war against Ukraine. North Korea and Russia have denied the allegations. 
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Seoul, South Korea — The leaders of South Korea, Japan and the United States issued a joint statement Sunday marking the anniversary of their summit at Camp David and reaffirmed a pledge to jointly tackle regional challenges, South Korea’s presidential office said.

The principles on trilateral cooperation established at the summit last year continue to serve as a roadmap for the three countries’ cooperation, the statement issued by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office said.

“We stand by our commitment to consult on regional challenges, provocations and threats affecting our collective interests and security,” it said.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Yoon met on Aug. 18 last year and agreed to deepen military and economic cooperation and take a united stand against China’s growing power and security threats from North Korea.

South Korean media have said the leaders plan to meet again this year, citing unnamed sources, but it was not yet clear when, especially since Kishida has announced he would be stepping down.

A senior South Korean presidential official said there will be two or three occasions where the three leaders will have the chance to meet and discussions over those plans are still in the early stages.

The spirit of cooperation among the three countries will live on even after Biden and Kishida leave office, the official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

“The three main actors who established the Camp David framework of cooperation won’t be in their roles forever,” he said.
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KOLKATA — Some Indian junior doctors remained off the job Sunday as they demanded swift justice for a colleague who was raped and murdered, despite the end of a strike called by a big doctors’ association, while some other people held street protests. 

Doctors across the country have held protests, candlelight marches and refused to see non-emergency patients in the past week after the killing of the 31-year-old postgraduate student of chest medicine in the early hours of Aug. 9 in the eastern city of Kolkata.

In solidarity with the doctors, thousands of people marched in the streets of Kolkata on Sunday evening chanting “we want justice,” as authorities in West Bengal state struggle to contain demonstrations against the horrific crime.

Women activists say the incident at the British colonial-era R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer despite tougher laws following the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.

“My daughter is gone but millions of sons and daughters are now with me,” the father of the victim, who cannot be identified under Indian law, told reporters late Saturday, referring to the protesting doctors. “This has given me a lot of strength and I feel we will gain something out of it.”

India introduced sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, including tougher sentences, after the 2012 attack, but campaigners say little has changed and not enough has been done to deter violence against women.

A police volunteer, designated to help police personnel and their families with hospital admissions when needed, has been arrested and charged with the crime.

His mother told Reuters she was in remorse but would extend whatever support her son needs.

“I should not have given birth to my son … it’s a huge mistake,” she said at her home.

The Indian Medical Association, whose 24-hour strike ended at 6 a.m. (0030 GMT) Sunday, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a letter that, as 60% of India’s doctors are women, he needed to intervene to ensure hospital staff were protected by security protocols akin to those at airports.

Could stop emergency services

The R.G. Kar hospital has been rocked by agitation and rallies for more than a week. Police banned the assembly of five or more people around the hospital for a week from Sunday, which was defied by the protesters late in the day before they dispersed.

The government has urged doctors to return to duty to treat rising cases of dengue and malaria while it sets up a committee to suggest measures to improve protection for health care professionals.

Most doctors had resumed their usual activities, IMA officials said.  

“The doctors are back to their routine,” said Dr. Madan Mohan Paliwal, the IMA head in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. “The next course of action will be decided if the government does not take any strict steps to protect doctors… and this time we could stop emergency services too.”

But the All India Residents and Junior Doctors’ Joint Action Forum said Saturday it would continue a “nationwide cease-work” with a 72-hour deadline for authorities to conduct a thorough inquiry and make arrests.

In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, more than 6,000 trainee doctors in government hospitals continued to stay away from non-emergency medical services Sunday for a third day, although private institutes resumed regular operations.

Dr. Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, additional medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar, said junior doctors and interns had not resumed duty. 

“There is a lot of pressure on others because manpower is reduced,” he said. 
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PETROPAVOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia — One of Russia’s most active volcanoes has erupted, spewing plumes of ash 5 kilometers (3 miles) into the sky over the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula and briefly triggering a “code red” warning for aircraft.

The Shiveluch volcano began sputtering shortly after a powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off Kamchatka’s east coast early Sunday, according to volcanologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences. They warned that another, even more potent earthquake may be on the way.

The academy’s Institute of Volcanology and Seismology released a video showing the ash cloud over Shiveluch. It stretched over 490 kilometers (304 miles) east and southeast of the volcano.

The Ebeko volcano located on the Kuril Islands also spewed ash 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) high, the institute said. It did not explicitly say whether the earthquake touched off the eruptions.

A “code red” ash cloud warning briefly put all aircraft in the area on alert, the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team reported. A separate report on Sunday carried by the official Tass news agency said that no commercial flights had been disrupted and there was no damage to aviation infrastructure.

The tremors in the area may be a prelude to an even stronger earthquake in southeastern Kamchatka, Russian scientists warned. The Institute of Volcanology said a potential second quake could come “within 24 hours” with a magnitude approaching 9.0.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from Sunday’s earthquake, which struck at a depth of 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) under the sea bed with the epicenter 108 kilometers (67 miles) southeast of the nearest city, according to Russian emergency officials.

Russian news outlets cited residents of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a port city of more than 181,000 people that sits across a bay from an important Russian submarine base, reporting some of the strongest shaking “in a long time.”

On Nov. 4, 1952, a magnitude 9.0 quake in Kamchatka caused damage but no reported deaths despite setting off 9.1-meter (30-foot) waves in Hawaii.
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Islamabad — Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, has formally applied to run for chancellor of the University of Oxford in Britain from his prison cell, a close aide announced Sunday.

Khan served as Pakistan’s leader from 2018 until April 2022, when he was ousted through an opposition parliamentary no-confidence vote he alleges was planned by the powerful Pakistani military.

“As per Imran Khan’s instructions, his application form to Oxford University Chancellor Election 2024 has been submitted,” Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“We look forward to everyone’s support for a historic campaign,” he wrote.

Khan, who remains Pakistan’s most popular politician, has been in jail since last August after becoming embroiled in a series of prosecutions and lawsuits on charges that include corruption, sedition and stoking violent anti-army protests. He rejects the allegations as baseless and claims the military is behind them.

The 71-year-old former cricket star turned prime minister has had all convictions against him before Pakistan’s February 8 national elections suspended or overturned by appellate courts because of lack of evidence, yet Khan remains incarcerated on newer charges.

The convictions also barred him from running for public office. Candidates backed by his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party emerged winners on most parliamentary seats but not enough to form the government amid allegations the vote was massively rigged to prevent PTI from sweeping the polls. This allowed military backed rival political parties to form a coalition administration with Shehbaz Sharif as the prime minister.

Khan graduated from Oxford in 1975, studying philosophy, politics, and economics. Former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson are also among the candidates to become the university’s chancellor.

The Convocation members, which include all university alumni who have been granted a degree, are responsible for electing the chancellor of Oxford University. Anyone seeking to run for the position must receive a nomination from at least two Convocation members to be considered eligible.

The University of Oxford website states that the Convocation will be asked to elect the new chancellor through an unprecedented online ballot during the third week of the Michaelmas term, beginning on October 28.

The new chancellor will hold the position for 10 years. The chancellorship traditionally goes to university graduates, often politicians.

The United Nations last month declared Khan’s detention arbitrary, saying there is no legal basis for keeping him in jail. Hundreds of his party workers and leaders, including women, have been jailed or being prosecuted on charges defense attorneys reject as baseless and part of the military-backed state crackdown on the party.

Khan served as the chancellor of Bradford University from 2005 to 2014.

The Pakistani military and Khan’s successors denied allegations of orchestrating his removal from power or being involved in the numerous legal challenges facing him.
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BANGKOK — Leaders of Thailand’s newest pro-democracy party are under an ethics investigation that could see them cast out of the National Assembly over allegations echoing those that saw the party’s predecessor dissolved by court order earlier this month.

Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission said August 8 it had ordered a probe of 44 opposition members of the parliament accused of breaking the ethics rules for lawmakers for having sponsored a 2021 bill, which failed, to amend the country’s controversial royal defamation, or lèse-majesté, law.

The announcement came a day after the Constitutional Court dissolved the progressive Move Forward Party, which won last year’s national election, for campaigning to soften the law, which prescribes up to 15 years in jail for each offense.

The court said the party’s efforts posed a threat to national security, and followed on from its January ruling that the campaign was a veiled attempt to upend Thailand’s constitutional monarchy governmental structure, a claim the party denied.

All 44 lawmakers now under investigation by the anti-corruption commission were Move Forward members. Five were banned from public office for 10 years in the August 7 ruling that dissolved the party. The other 39 have since joined the People’s Party, set up in the wake of Move Forward’s dissolution to take its place, and include its new leader, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut.

If the commission concludes the 39 did breach the ethics rules, it would then send the case to the Supreme Court, which could ban them from public office as well.

Analysts told VOA the previous court rulings on Move Forward’s campaign to amend the royal defamation law laid the groundwork for their possible convictions.

“The Constitutional Court has essentially delivered a verdict that could serve as a catalyst for upcoming verdicts against these 44 MPs,” said Napon Jatusripitak, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

The Supreme Court may follow different procedures than the Constitutional Court and decide to call its own witnesses, he said.

“But it would be quite an interesting outcome if the Supreme Court ruled in a way that contradicts the Constitutional Court’s verdict, given that the Constitutional Court is treated as the highest court in Thailand,” he added.

Verapat Pariyawong, who teaches Thai law and politics at SOAS University of London, also pointed to the precedent set by even earlier court verdicts that banned leaders of Future Forward, a progressive party that was dissolved by court order in 2020 and then gave rise to Move Forward.

He said the case of Pannika Wanich was especially relevant. Pannika, a lawmaker for each party in turn, was banned from public office for life by the Supreme Court last year for breaking ethics rules by posting a photo online in 2010 deemed to disparage the monarchy.

“The MPs in this [new] case, they didn’t make remarks in the same way that Pannika did. But they sponsored or they agreed to support the draft legislation [to amend the royal defamation law] directly or tacitly. And if the court follows the interpretation in Pannika’s case, they could expand the scope of the law to cover those MPs and therefore ban them,” Verapat said.

Officially, Thailand’s constitutional monarchy is meant to stay out of politics. However, the country’s recent string of progressive parties, and much of their base, say it has long wielded outsized influence over the government in favor of Thailand’s military and conservative elites.

They accuse those forces of weaponizing the royal defamation law to persecute parties, lawmakers and activists seeking to rein them in and move Thailand toward a more genuine democracy.

Since 2020, Thailand’s courts have charged 272 people with breaking the royal defamation law, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a local advocacy group.

Move Forward made amending the law, to limit who could file related court cases and lower the maximum jail term allowed, a central plank of the reform agenda that helped it win last year’s general election. Despite that win, conservative lawmakers blocked the party from winning a vote in the National Assembly for prime minister, shunting it into opposition.

Party supporters see the courts and commissions as doing the military and conservative elite’s bidding as well, and the broad language of some laws and rules as helping them do it.

The ethics rules the 39 People’s Party lawmakers are now accused of breaking say office holders must protect the country’s constitutional monarchy. The analysts, though, told VOA they give little counsel on what that means, leaving judges ample leeway.

“It’s open to interpretation, because … there is no clear definition about protection of the monarchy,” said Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani University.

“And when we talk about interpretation, it always means that if you are the target of the elite or the establishment then they could find anything to [rule] against you,” he added.

The analysts said the People’s Party is also running the risk of being dissolved altogether, as were Future Forward and Move Forward before it, by carrying on their agenda of amending the royal defamation law.

The party did not reply to VOA’s requests for comment. At a news conference on Aug. 9, though, party leader Natthaphong said they would “not be careless” in going about it, in hopes of avoiding their predecessors’ fate.

Whatever the new party’s fate, the analysts say the monarchy, or how conservative elites are seen to be using the laws that protect it for their own ends, will remain a major fault line defining Thai politics and dividing the public.

“The issue of the monarchy has been used by those politicians who would like to ensure that they remain in power,” said Verapat. “It’s those people who rely on issues of lèse-majesté to attack parties like MFP or People’s [Party], so that dynamic will continue as long as … the Constitutional Court can rely on lèse-majesté to disband political parties.”

Napon said that may also portent more rocky politics ahead for a country that has seen 13 coups over the past century and several rounds of mass, sometimes violent, protests over the last two decades.

“The problem is that it’s not clear that political parties can represent these divides effectively in parliament or during election campaigns due to legal limits, because these topics are considered highly sensitive and some off limits by the Constitutional Court,” he said.

“It means parliament will be very inept in representing actual divides in society,” he added. “And that leaves people with grievances that could only be expressed through means of street protest, which we have seen before did not lead to meaningful results other than … more repression and jail time.”
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ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — With its reindeer sleigh rides, camel racing and stunning landscapes with room to roam, Mongolia is hoping to woo visitors who are truly looking to get away from it all.

Like most countries, its tourism industry was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has launched a “Welcome to MonGOlia” campaign to win people back. The government has added flights and streamlined the visa process, offering visa-free visits for many countries.

At least 437,000 foreign tourists visited in the first seven months of this year, up 25% over the same period last year, including increasing numbers from Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Visitors from South Korea nearly doubled, thanks in part to the under-four-hour flight.

Despite the gains, Mongolia’s government is still short of its goal of 1 million visitors per year from 2023-25 to the land of Genghis Khan, which encompassed much of Eurasia in its 13th-century heyday and is now a landlocked nation located between Russia and China.

With a population of 3.3 million people, about half of them living in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, there’s plenty of open space for the adventure tourist to explore, said Egjimaa Battsooj, who works for a tour company. Its customized itineraries include horseback trips and camping excursions with the possibility of staying in gers, the felt-covered dwellings still used by Mongolia’s herders.

There’s little chance of running across private property, so few places are off-limits, she said.

“You don’t need to open a gate, you don’t need to have permission from anyone,” she said, sitting in front of a map of Mongolia with routes marked out with pins and strands of yarn.

“We are kind of like the last truly nomad culture on the whole planet,” she added.

Lonely Planet named Mongolia its top destination in its Best in Travel 2024 report. The pope’s visit to Mongolia last year also helped focus attention on the country. Its breakdancers became stars at last year’s Asian Games. And some local bands have developed a global following, like The Hu, a folk-metal band that incorporates traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing with modern rock.

Still, many people know little about Mongolia. American tourist Michael John said he knew some of the history about Genghis Khan and had seen a documentary on eagles used by hunters before deciding to stop in Ulaanbaatar as part of a longer vacation.

“It was a great opportunity to learn more,” the 40-year-old said.

Tourism accounted for 7.2% of Mongolia’s gross domestic product and 7.6% of its employment in 2019 before collapsing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank. But the organization noted “substantial growth potential” for Mongolia to exploit, with “diverse nature and stunning sceneries” and sports and adventure tourism possibilities.

Mongolia tourism ads focus on those themes, with beautiful views of frozen lakes in winter for skating and fishing, the Northern Lights and events like reindeer sledding and riding, camel racing and hiking.

Munkhjargal Dayan offers rides on two-humped Bactrian camels, traditional archery and the opportunity to have eagles trained for hunting perch on a visitor’s arm.

“We want to show tourists coming from other countries that we have such a way of life in Mongolia,” he said, waiting for customers by a giant statue of Genghis Kahn on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar.

Outside the lively capital, getting around can be difficult in summer as the steppes become waterlogged, and there is limited infrastructure, a shortage of accommodation and a deficit of skilled labor in tourism destinations.

It is also easy for foreigners to get lost, with few signs in English, said Dutch tourist Jasper Koning. Nevertheless, he said he was thoroughly enjoying his trip.

“The weather is super, the scenery is more than super, it’s clean, the people are friendly,” he said.
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BEIJING — Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam, arrived in China on Sunday for a three-day visit, according to Chinese state media, which Beijing’s foreign ministry has said will include meetings with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

The Vietnamese president, who was elevated this month to the nation’s top position, general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, arrived in Guangzhou, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Lam will visit some Chinese locations where former President Ho Chi Minh conducted revolutionary activities while in Guangzhou, CCTV added.

China and Vietnam forged diplomatic ties in 1950. In 2008, both countries established a comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation that was jointly fortified in 2013 to address more shared international and regional issues of concern.

The meeting would confirm the close ties between the two communist-run neighbors, which have well-developed economic and trade relations despite occasionally clashing over boundaries in the energy-rich South China Sea.

China painted Lam’s visit as taking Xi’s trip to Vietnam in December a step further, citing “a good start” to the building of a “China-Vietnam community of shared future that carries strategic significance” when the Chinese foreign ministry announced the trip.

The state visit marks Lam’s first after taking office, which China said “fully reflects the great importance he attaches to the development of ties between both parties and countries.”

Both countries signed more than a dozen agreements last December that included strengthening railway cooperation and development, and establishing communication to handle unexpected incidents in the South China Sea. The details of the agreements were not made public. 
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Bangkok — The Thai king on Sunday formally appointed Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the 37-year-old daughter of controversial billionaire ex-premier Thaksin, as Thailand’s new prime minister.

Paetongtarn, the kingdom’s youngest-ever PM, comes to office after a court sacked the previous premier and disbanded the main opposition party, throwing Thailand’s ever-febrile political scene into a new round of turmoil.

She is the third Shinawatra to be prime minister but will hope to avoid the fate of her father and aunt, Yingluck, both of whom were thrown out of power in military coups.

Paetongtarn received King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s official written command to form a government in a ceremony at the headquarters of a former pro-Thaksin TV station soon after 9:30 a.m. (0230 GMT).

Thaksin, 75, was a prominent attendee at the ceremony, standing alongside Paetongtarn’s husband in the front row.

She heads a coalition government led by her Pheu Thai party — the latest incarnation of the political movement founded by her father in the early 2000s — but including some pro-military groups long opposed to Thaksin.

Her elevation to the top job came about after the kingdom’s Constitutional Court sacked previous premier, Srettha Thavisin, on Wednesday for breaching ethics rules by appointing a Cabinet minister with a criminal conviction.

Thailand has been dominated for more than 20 years by a tussle for dominance between Thaksin and his allies and the kingdom’s conservative pro-military, pro-royalist elite.

Parties linked to the former telecoms tycoon and one-time Manchester City owner have repeatedly won elections, only to find their governments upended by coups and court rulings.

Paetongtarn is a relative newcomer, running the hotel arm of the family business until late 2022, when she entered politics ahead of last year’s general election where Pheu Thai was unexpectedly beaten into second place by the upstart progressive Move Forward Party (MFP).

After being approved by lawmakers on Friday, Paetongtarn acknowledged her lack of experience but said she was ready to take on the challenge of “improving the quality of lives and empowering all Thais.”

Controversial father

Despite winning most seats in last year’s election, MFP was blocked from forming a government by conservative junta-appointed senators spooked by its promise to reform royal insult laws and break up powerful business monopolies.

That allowed Pheu Thai to strike an uneasy coalition deal with pro-military parties once staunchly opposed to Thaksin and his followers, leading to Srettha’s ascension.

Less than a year later, he became the third Pheu Thai prime minister to be kicked out by the Constitutional Court.

Paetongtarn will be watched closely for signs of influence exerted by her father, who is the most influential but controversial politician in modern Thai history.

He transformed the kingdom’s politics in the early 2000s with populist policies that won him and his party enduring loyalty from the rural masses — and two election victories.

But that success came at a cost: he was despised by Thailand’s powerful elites and conservative establishment, who saw his rule as corrupt, authoritarian and socially destabilizing.

Ousted as prime minister by the army in 2006, Thaksin went into exile two years later but never stopped commenting on national affairs — or meddling in them, according to his critics.

He returned last year on the day Srettha became PM, and was immediately jailed on graft and abuse of office charges dating back to his time in office.

But his eight-year sentence was quickly cut to one year by the king, fueling rumors of a backroom deal, and he was then soon granted parole because of his age and poor health.

On Saturday he was granted a royal pardon, making him a free man two weeks before his parole was due to end.

Aside from any battles with the establishment, Paetongtarn also faces a tough task in revitalizing a sluggish economy that has struggled to bounce back since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Srettha struggled to enact a flagship “digital wallet” cash handout policy, but will be remembered as the prime minister who legalized same-sex marriage.
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Beijing, China — Youth unemployment in China ticked up to 17.1% in July, official figures showed, the highest level this year as the world’s second-largest economy faces mounting headwinds.

China is battling soaring joblessness among young people, a heavily indebted property sector and intensifying trade issues with the West.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is responsible for economic policy, called Friday for struggling companies to be “heard” and “their difficulties truly addressed,” according to the state news agency Xinhua.

The unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds released Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was up markedly from June’s 13.2%.

The closely watched metric peaked at 21.3% in June of 2023, before authorities suspended publication of the figures and later changed their methodology to exclude students.

Nearly 12 million students graduated from Chinese universities this June, heightening competition in an already tough job market and likely explaining July’s sharp increase in joblessness.

In May, President Xi Jinping said countering youth unemployment must be regarded as a “top priority.”

Disappointing data

Among 25- to 29-year-olds, the unemployment rate stood at 6.5% for July, up from the previous month’s 6.4%.

For China’s workforce, the national unemployment rate was 5.2%.

However, the NBS figures paint an incomplete picture of China’s overall employment situation, as they take only urban areas into account.

The new unemployment figures come on the heels of other disappointing economic data from Beijing, including figures showing dampened industrial production, despite recent government measures aimed at boosting growth.

Industrial production growth weakened in July, with the month’s 5.1% expansion down from June’s 5.3% and falling short of analysts’ predictions.

China’s major cities also recorded another decline in real estate prices last month, a sign of sluggish demand.

Demand for bank loans also contracted for the first time in nearly 20 years, according to official figures published earlier this week.

International challenges are also mounting, with the European Union and the United States increasingly imposing trade barriers to protect their markets from low-cost Chinese products and perceived unfair competition.
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ISLAMABAD — Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday in the highest-level visit by a foreign official to the country since the Taliban returned to power three years ago. 

Aripov, heading a delegation, was welcomed at the Kabul airport by Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, and other senior members of the government, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. 

During his visit, Aripov met with Taliban leaders and discussed bilateral relations and strengthening trade and business between the two countries, the statement said. Five trade and investment agreements were signed. 

The delegation is also there to inaugurate an exhibition of Uzbek products, the statement said. 

Earlier in the week, an Uzbek delegation held meetings with officials from the Ministry of Commerce. On Friday, Afghan media reported that a trilateral meeting among the economy ministers of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan was held in Kabul to discuss ways to enhance trade ties. 

Uzbekistan and Afghanistan share a 144-kilometer (89-mile) border and recently there has been an improvement in relations between them. 

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were withdrawing from the country after 20 years of war. So far, the world has not recognized Afghanistan’s Taliban government. The international community has been wary of the Taliban’s harsh measures imposed since their takeover, especially the restrictions on the rights of women, girls and minorities. 
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KOLKATA/BHUBANESWAR, India — Hospitals and clinics across India turned away patients except for emergency cases on Saturday as medical professionals staged a 24-hour shutdown in protest over the rape and murder of a doctor this month in the eastern city of Kolkata.

More than 1 million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralyzing medical services across the world’s most-populous nation. Hospitals said faculty from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases.

The government, in a statement issued on Saturday after a meeting with representatives of medical associations, urged doctors to return to duties in the public interest. The government would set up a committee to suggest measures to improve protection for health care professionals, it said.

In response, the Indian Medical Association said it was studying the government offer, but it did not call off the strike, which was due to end at 6 a.m. Sunday.

The walk-out was the latest action in response to the killing of a 31-year-old trainee doctor last week inside the medical college in Kolkata where she worked.

The crime has triggered nationwide protests among medical workers and a public outpouring of anger over violence against women reminiscent of what followed the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012.

No elective procedures

The strike halted access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, according to the Indian Medical Association, or IMA.

There was a heavy police presence outside Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College, where the woman was killed, while the hospital premises were deserted, according to the ANI news agency.

Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, which includes Kolkata, has backed the protests across the state. Her government announced on Saturday evening measures to improve security for women working night shifts, including designated rest rooms and safe zones monitored by cameras.

It also asked private institutions to consider measures such as night patrols to make the working environment more secure for women.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has so far detained one suspect in the case.

The CBI summoned some medical students from the college as part of its investigation, according to a police source in Kolkata, who said the agency also questioned the principal of the hospital on Friday.

There were protests throughout the day in Kolkata, led by doctors, civil society members and political leaders. Many private clinics and diagnostic centers were closed.

Dr. Sandip Saha, a private pediatrician in the city, told Reuters he would not attend to patients except in emergencies.

Hospitals and clinics in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Guwahati in Assam and Chennai in Tamil Nadu and other cities joined the strike, set to be one of the largest shutdowns of hospital services in recent memory.

Patients queue at hospitals

Patients queued at hospitals, some unaware that they would not get medical attention.

“I have spent 500 rupees [$6] on travel to come here. I have paralysis and a burning sensation in my feet, head and other parts of my body,” an unidentified patient at SCB Medical College Hospital in the city of Cuttack in Odisha told local television.

“We were not aware of the strike. What can we do? We have to return home.”

Raghunath Sahu, 45, who had lined up at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, told Reuters a daily quota set by the doctors to see patients had ended before noon.

“I have brought my ailing grandmother. They did not see her today. I will have to wait for another day and try again,” Sahu said.

India’s government introduced sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, including tougher sentences, after the 2012 Delhi gang-rape, but campaigners say little has changed and not enough has been done to deter violence against women.

“Women form the majority of our profession in this country.

Time and again, we have asked for safety for them,” IMA President R.V. Asokan told Reuters on Friday.

The IMA has called for further legal measures to better protect health care workers from violence.
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PENAJAM PASER UTARA, Indonesia — Indonesia marked 79 years of independence Saturday with a ceremony in the unfinished future capital of Nusantara, which was planned to relieve pressure on Jakarta but whose construction has lagged behind schedule.

Hundreds of officials and invited guests wearing the traditional clothes of Indonesian tribes gathered on a stretch of grass amid the ongoing construction of government buildings and the view of construction cranes in the center of Nusantara.

President Joko Widodo and his Cabinet ministers attended the Independence Day ceremony at the new Presidential Palace, built in the shape of the mythical eagle-winged protector figure called Garuda.

The celebration was initially planned to inaugurate Nusantara as the country’s new capital, but with construction behind schedule, it’s not clear when the transfer will take place.

Widodo said earlier in the week that 8,000 guests would be invited, but the number was later reduced to 1,300 because adequate infrastructure was not yet in place.

The celebration at the new State Palace on the island of Borneo was held simultaneously with a celebration at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta that was attended by Vice President Ma’ruf Amin.

Widodo began working at the new presidential palace in Nusantara in late July and held his first Cabinet meeting there Tuesday.

More than 5,000 officers from Indonesia’s police and military were deployed for the ceremony and 76 honorary flag-bearers marched behind the national red-and-white banner.

Jakarta, with about 10 million people in the city limits and three times that number in the greater metropolitan area, floods regularly and its streets are so clogged that congestion costs the economy an estimated $4.5 billion a year.

The air and groundwater in the old capital, on the northwestern coast of the Java island, are heavily polluted, and it has been described as the world’s most-rapidly sinking city. It is estimated that one-third of the city could be submerged by 2050, due to uncontrolled groundwater extraction and the rise of the Java Sea due to climate change.

The construction of the new capital began in mid-2022, spread over an area of about 2,600 square kilometers (1,000 square miles) carved out of Borneo’s jungle. Officials say it will be a futuristic green city with abundant forests and parks, powered by renewable energy sources and using smart waste management.

But the project has been dogged by criticism from environmentalists and Indigenous communities, who say it degrades the environment, further shrinks the habitat of endangered animals such as orangutans, and displaces Indigenous people who rely on the land for their livelihoods.

Since construction began, seven groundbreaking ceremonies have taken place for the construction of government and public buildings, hotels, banks and schools.

With a population of about 275 million, Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Most of the new capital’s investors are Indonesian companies. The government is contributing 20% of the $33 billion budget and relying significantly on private sector investment for the rest.

To attract investors, Widodo recently offered incentives for the new capital, including land rights lasting up to 190 years and generous tax incentives. Widodo, who has led the country for 10 years, will leave office in October.
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SRINAGAR, India — India on Friday announced three-phased assembly elections in disputed Kashmir, the first in a decade and in a new political environment after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019 stripped the Muslim-majority region of its semi-autonomy and downgraded it to a federally controlled territory.

Since those changes, the region has remained on edge, governed by a New Delhi-appointed administrator and run by bureaucrats with no democratic credentials.

The new polls will be held between September 18 and October 1, India’s Election Commission said at a news conference in the capital, New Delhi. The vote will take place in a staggered process that allows the government to deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent any outbreak of violence. Votes will be counted on October 4.

The multistage voting will elect a local government — a chief minister who will serve as the region’s top official with a council of ministers — from pro-India parties participating in the elections.

However, contrary to the past, the local assembly will have barely any legislative powers and only nominal control over education and culture. The power to make laws for the region will continue to be held by India’s parliament, while policy decisions will be made in the capital.

Local politicians have demanded the earliest restoration of statehood so that full legislative powers could be returned to the local assembly.

Mixed reaction

Public reaction to the announcement was mixed.

“We are happy that we will finally have our election,” said Haya Javaid, a resident of Srinagar, the region’s main city.

“It would have been great if they [authorities] had also announced the restoration of statehood” for the region, said resident Malik Zahoor.

Mohit Bhan, a spokesperson for Kashmir’s People’s Democratic Party, said the announcement was “like too little, too late.” He wrote on social platform X that the region “has been reduced to a municipality” that was “once a powerful state with special status.”

“This isn’t democracy, it’s a mockery. Restoring full statehood should be the first step,” he said.

The 2024 elections will be held for 90 constituencies, excluding Ladakh. In 2022, the Indian government redrew assembly constituencies and added four seats to the Hindu-dominated Jammu and three to the overwhelmingly Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.

The former state assembly had 87 members, including four from Ladakh.

The last assembly election was held in 2014, after which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for the first time ruled the region in a coalition with the Peoples Democratic Party. In 2018, the BJP withdrew its support to the government, following which the assembly was dissolved.

A year later, New Delhi divided the region into Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir while scrapping its statehood amid a massive security and communications lockdown that went on for months.

History of conflict

Kashmir is divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan. Each administers part of the territory, but both claim the entire territory.

Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Authorities say violence in the region has reduced significantly since 2019, but in recent months, there has been a sharp rise in militant attacks on government forces in parts of the Hindu-dominated Jammu area.

Kashmiri Muslim separatist leaders who challenge India’s sovereignty over the disputed region have in the past called for a boycott of the vote, calling it an illegitimate exercise under military occupation.
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Stockholm — Health authorities warned Friday that Europe must be ready for more cases of a deadly strain of mpox that has killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The World Health Organization urged pharmaceutical firms to ramp up vaccine production and China said it would screen travelers for the disease after the first cases of the more deadly strain to be recorded outside Africa were announced in Sweden and Pakistan.

France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said his country was on the “highest alert” and would implement “new recommendations” for travelers to risk areas.

Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by animals but can also spread human-to-human through close physical contact.

It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

The WHO on Wednesday declared the rapid spread of the new Clade 1b strain an international public health emergency — the agency’s highest alert.

This follows the spread of the more deadly mpox from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to other African countries.

“We do need the manufacturers to really scale up so that we’ve got access to many, many more vaccines,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters.

The WHO is asking countries with vaccine stockpiles to donate them to countries with outbreaks.

Harris said mpox was “particularly dangerous for those with a weak immune system, so people who maybe have HIV or are malnourished,” and was also dangerous for small children.

The United States has said it will donate 50,000 doses of an mpox vaccine to DRC and Attal said France would also send vaccines to risk countries.

Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said Thursday it would be ready to make up to 10 million doses of its mpox vaccine by 2025 but that it needed contracts to start production.

The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the overall risk in Europe was “low.” But it warned that “effective surveillance, laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation and contact tracing capacities will be vital to detecting cases.”

“Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases,” ECDC director Pamela Rendi-Wagner said in a statement.

Hundreds killed in DRC

The virus has swept across DRC, killing 548 people so far this year, the government said Thursday.

Nigeria has recorded 39 mpox cases this year, but no deaths, according to its health authorities. Previously unaffected countries such as Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have reported outbreaks, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sweden’s Public Health Agency announced Thursday it had registered a case of Clade 1b.

The patient was infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1,” epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in a statement.

The mpox strain in the Pakistan case was not immediately known, the country’s health ministry said in a statement.

It said the patient, a 34-year-old man, had “come from a Gulf country.”

China announced it would begin screening people and goods entering the country for mpox over the next six months.

People arriving from countries where outbreaks have occurred, who have been in contact with mpox cases or display symptoms should “declare to customs when entering the country,” China’s customs administration said.

Vehicles, containers and items from areas with mpox cases should be sanitized, it added in a statement.

Vaccination drive

Mpox has two subtypes: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.

A worldwide outbreak beginning in 2022 involving the Clade 2b subclade caused some 140 deaths out of about 90,000 cases, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

France reported 107 cases of the milder mpox variant between January 1 and June 30 this year.

The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said the Sweden case was “a clear reflection of the interconnectedness of our world.”

But it added: “Travel restrictions and border closures don’t work and should be avoided.”
…

Tokyo — A typhoon that blasted parts of Japan with more than 200-kph winds moved out to sea on Saturday, mostly sparing the capital and allowing trains and some flights to resume.

Tokyo and its surrounding areas had been on high alert Friday for Ampil’s approach, with transport services, trips, events and school classes canceled en masse.

The storm was packing wind gusts of 216 kph on Saturday morning when it veered away from the archipelago and headed northeast into the Pacific.

Even so, the Japan Meteorological Agency warned that “some areas in the northern part of Japan are experiencing heavy rain due to warm, humid air around the typhoon.”

“Please be advised that the risk of landslides has been significantly elevated by the heavy rain so far in some areas,” the weather agency said in an advisory Saturday morning.

Although the feared catastrophe in Tokyo never came, some minor injuries and damage were reported, including broken windows, toppled trees and broken utility poles.

Most parts of Japan’s bullet train network went back to normal Saturday after the Central Japan Railway Company closed a busy section between Tokyo and Nagoya the day before.

“JR Central bullet trains are business as usual today,” the railway firm said on its website.

Airlines were still being affected to a degree, with broadcaster NHK saying All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines had together scrapped 68 flights as of Saturday morning, after hundreds of cancelations the day before.   
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BANGKOK — Southeast Asia is among the regions most prone to natural disasters, but a new analysis released Thursday shows its people also feel the best equipped to deal with them.

It seems logical that the countries in and around the Pacific Ring of Fire, vulnerable to earthquakes, typhoons, storm surges and other dangers, are also the best prepared, but the survey by Gallup for the Lloyd’s Register Foundation shows that’s not always the case in other regions.

“Frequent exposure to hazard isn’t the only factor that determines how prepared people feel,” Benedict Vigers, a research consultant with Gallup, told The Associated Press.

The report found the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has played a key role in disaster risk reduction, and Vigers said the region’s wider approach includes widespread and effective early warning systems, scaled-up community approaches and regional cooperation, and good access to disaster finance.

“Southeast Asia’s success in feelings of disaster preparedness can be linked to its high exposure to disasters, its relatively high levels of resilience – from individual people to overall society, and the region’s approach to — and investment into — disaster risk management more broadly,” he said.

Forty percent of people surveyed in Southeast Asia said they had experienced a natural disaster in the past five years, while a similar number — 36% — in Southern Asia said the same. But 67% of Southeast Asians felt among the best prepared to protect their families and 62% had emergency plans, while Southern Asians felt less ready, with 49% and 29% respectively.

Respondents from North America, which is significantly less disaster-prone than Southeast Asia, said they only felt slightly less prepared, while those in Northern and Western Europe were in the middle of the pack.

The results from Southeast Asia, primarily made up of lower-middle-income countries, suggest wealth is not a deciding factor in disaster response and preparation, said Ed Morrow, senior campaigns manager for Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a British-based global safety charity.

Southeast Asia is “a region that clearly has much to teach the world in terms of preparing for disasters,” he said.

Globally, no country ranked higher than the Philippines for having experienced a natural disaster in the past five years, with 87% of respondents saying they had.

It was also among the top four countries where the highest proportion of households have a disaster plan. All were in Southeast Asia: the Philippines (84%), Vietnam (83%), Cambodia (82%) and Thailand (67%), followed by the United States (62%).

Those with the lowest proportion were Egypt, Kosovo and Tunisia, all with 7%.

The data were drawn from the World Risk Poll, conducted every two years, with the main results from the 2023 survey published in June. Questions on disasters focused on natural hazards instead of conflicts or financial disasters, and they excluded the coronavirus pandemic.

Surveys were conducted of people aged 15 and above in 142 countries and based on telephone or face-to-face conversations with approximately 1,000 or more respondents in each country with the exception of China, where some 2,200 people were contacted online.

Margin of error ranged from plus or minus 2.2 to 4.9 percentage points, for an overall 95% confidence level.

“It is our intention that this freely available data should be used by governments, regulators, businesses, NGOs and international bodies to inform and target policies and interventions that make people safer,” Morrow said.
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washington — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s freedom-based approach toward unifying the two Koreas could chart a bold path signaling a departure from the policies of his predecessors, experts in Washington said. 

In a speech commemorating South Korea’s Liberation Day on Thursday, Yoon introduced the “August 15 Doctrine,” his vision for achieving a “freedom-based unification” of the Korean Peninsula.

Made up of incremental strategies, the doctrine seeks a dialogue between South and North but puts much weight on addressing the North Korean human rights issue.

“Testimonials from numerous North Korean defectors show that our radio and TV broadcasts helped make them aware of the false propaganda and instigations emanating from the North Korean regime,” Yoon said during his speech.

The seven key steps under the doctrine include expanding North Koreans’ rights to access information, supporting endeavors to inform the international community of North Korea’s human rights situation, incorporating the roles of North Korean defectors into unification efforts, and providing humanitarian aid to North Korea.

Accent on rights

Sung-Yoon Lee, a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Indo-Pacific Program, said Yoon broke from the South Korean presidents before him by accentuating North Koreans’ human rights.

“None of his predecessors made the explicit connection between freedom for all North Koreans and final liberation of the Korean Peninsula,” Lee told VOA Korean on Thursday via email.

Lee said Yoon was “boldly emphasizing North Korea human rights and the protection of the right to speech and information of North Koreans, while seeking talks” with Pyongyang.

Evans Revere, who served as acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, agreed that North Korean human rights were at the core of the Yoon doctrine.

“Seoul is clearly planning to make these ideas the centerpiece of its approach to North Korea going forward,” Revere told VOA Korean on Thursday via email.

Revere said that the new approach has “the potential to create schisms” inside North Korea and accelerate the process of political and social change if South Korea is “successful in delivering this message to the people of North Korea through its radio and television broadcasts and by other means.”

Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies, said that Yoon was intently focused on the notion of freedom of people on the Korean Peninsula, noting that the words “free” or “freedom” appear over 50 times in his speech.

“I don’t see this as contradictory to reinforcing the idea of freedom-based unification,” Yeo told VOA Korean on Thursday via email.

Strong protest

Yeo, however, expressed skepticism about how the North Korean regime will respond to Yoon’s proposal.

“The call to establish an inter-Korean working group to discuss people-to-people cooperation and humanitarian engagement will ring hollow to Kim Jong Un given the Yoon government’s emphasis on freedom before unification,” he said.

Revere said he was “highly pessimistic” that Pyongyang will react well to the proposal.

Revere explained that words such as “freedom” and “democracy,” which are highlighted in the new unification vision, are “anathema to the DPRK, as is the idea that the ROK intends to boost its efforts to get information to the North Korean people.”

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name, while ROK is an abbreviation of South Korea’s official name, Republic of Korea.

Robert Rapson, who served as chargé d’affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, cautioned that Yoon’s vision could result in the escalation of tension.

“If anything, it is bound to elicit sharp negative reactions in Pyongyang, and likely in Beijing, too, and lead to a heightening of tensions along the DMZ and across the peninsula,” he told VOA Korean on Thursday via email.

The United States voiced support for Yoon’s proposal.

“The long-standing, ironclad alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea has contributed to peace, security and prosperity for Northeast Asia, the broader Indo-Pacific and beyond,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean on Friday via email.

“We support President Yoon’s aim to open a path for serious and sustained diplomacy with the DPRK,” the spokesperson said, adding that “we are committed to working with allies and partners to promote human rights, accountability and access to information in the DPRK.”

China, North Korea’s closest strategic partner, took a more reserved view.

“DPRK and ROK are the main parties to the Korean Peninsula issue, which should ultimately be resolved through dialogue and cooperation,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told VOA Korean on Friday in an emailed statement.

“China supports all measures that are conducive to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the spokesperson said. “We sincerely hope that the North-South relations will continue to improve and that the Korean Peninsula will maintain peace and stability.”

North Korea has not responded to Yoon’s speech on its major state media outlets.
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NEW DELHI/DHAKA — Bangladesh’s caretaker government told Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Friday that reports of attacks on Hindus and other minorities in the Muslim-majority country are “exaggerated” and assured him it is committed to protecting everyone. 

A schoolteacher was killed and at least 45 people injured as homes, businesses, and temples of Hindus were targeted last week after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina quit and fled the country amid violent protests seeking her ouster. 

Hindu-majority India has strong cultural and business ties with its neighbor and Modi’s government has expressed concern over the spate of attacks on Hindus. 

Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, head of the caretaker government that took over after Hasina left, called Modi and assured him of the “protection, safety and security of Hindus and all minorities in Bangladesh”, Modi said in a post on X. 

“Reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful and progressive Bangladesh,” Modi added. 

Yunus said “reports of attacks on minorities have been exaggerated”, according to a statement from his office. The caretaker government is committed to “ensuring human rights for every citizen of the country”, he added. 

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council estimates at least 52 of the country’s 64 districts have been affected by incidents of sectarian violence since Aug. 5, the day Hasina fled to India. 

Hundreds of Hindus have been trying to flee to India to escape the violence, local residents told Reuters last week. 

Hindus make up about 8% of Bangladesh’s 170 million people and have historically supported Hasina’s long-ruling Awami League party, which identifies as largely secular, rather than the opposition bloc which includes a hardline Islamist party. 
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BEIJING — China urged neighboring countries to help war-torn Myanmar advance its peace and reconciliation process as its foreign minister met counterparts from Laos, Myanmar and Thailand on Friday. 

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi called the situation in Myanmar “worrying,” and he suggested neighboring countries should promote cooperation with Myanmar to help it create economic and social conditions that prevent conflict. 

Earlier, Wang told a news conference in Thailand that China supports a democratic transition in Myanmar and backs a regional plan to find a way out of the ongoing crisis in the Southeast Asian country. 

Wang said neighboring countries “sitting in the same boat, and drinking water from the same river” have a better understanding of Myanmar’s situation than others. 

Myanmar has been in turmoil since February 2021 when the military ousted an elected civilian government in a coup, abruptly ending the impoverished country’s tentative steps toward becoming a full-fledged democracy. 

“No one wants Myanmar to restore stability and development more than its neighbors,” Wang said.
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