Irvine, California — Jeremiah Manele and Charlot Salwai, the prime ministers of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, are in China this week. Their visits come as Beijing seeks to grow its bilateral ties with the two South Pacific nations and as China is increasingly competing for influence in the region with Australia, the United States and others.   

Last week, China donated a presidential building to Vanuatu while Australia and New Zealand inaugurated an airfield in the Solomon Islands. During his first overseas trip to Australia last week, Manele sought Canberra’s support to double the Solomon Islands’ police force.

The airfield and Australia’s security support are two key things analysts say China will focus on during Manele’s visit to Beijing this week.  

“Everything happening in the region is viewed through a comparative lens and recent developments [in the Solomon Islands-Australia relationship] will be top of the agenda for the Chinese,” Michael Walsh, a visiting researcher at the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, told VOA by phone.  

For Manele, the priority will be addressing the Solomon Islands’ economic issues, some experts say. 

“[Since] the Solomon Islands’ economy is in a precarious state, Manele wants to demonstrate to Solomon Islanders that his government’s close relationship with Beijing will bring economic benefits that are tangible to their everyday lives,” Parker Novak, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told VOA by phone.  

Ahead of the trips, China’s Foreign Ministry said discussions will focus on issues of mutual interest and growing relations. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Manele’s trip would be a “great opportunity for the two sides to work together to further strengthen strategic communication, expand practical cooperation, and advance our bilateral ties.” 

While former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was in office, the Solomon Islands deepened ties with China, including signing a police cooperation agreement with Beijing.  

Manele was the Solomon Islands’ foreign minister during Sogavare’s tenure, and some analysts expect he’ll maintain a similar foreign policy agenda.  

“He said he would maintain the standard position of ‘being friends to all and enemies to none’ for the Solomon Islands,” said Tess Newton Cain, an adjunct associate professor at Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. 

“[While] the meat and bones of Solomon Islands’ foreign policy is not going to change significantly under Manele, he will be more moderate when it comes to presenting his administration’s foreign policy agenda,” Cain told VOA by phone. 

After his trip to Australia, Manele told journalists that discussions about seeking Canberra’s support to expand the Solomon Islands’ police force won’t affect the island nation’s security arrangements with Beijing.  

“The arrangements with the People’s Republic of China, including the police cooperation arrangements, will remain in place,” he said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 

Following his trip to China, Manele travels to Japan to attend the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders meeting from July 16 to July 18. 

Great power competition in Pacific  

Despite a failed attempt to push through a regional security pact with 10 Pacific Island nations in 2022, China continues to seek opportunities to increase its influence in the Pacific.  

China signed a police cooperation deal with the Solomon Islands last year and has offered to provide security support to Tonga for a Pacific Islands Forum taking place in August. Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said he was considering the offer.  

Meanwhile, Kiribati’s acting police commissioner, Eeri Aritiera, told the Reuters news agency in February that a Chinese police delegation would support the island nation’s community policing program and IT department, raising concerns from some U.S. lawmakers. 

In January, Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko, revealed that his country was engaging in early talks with China about a potential security and policing deal, prompting a senior U.S. official to warn that security guarantees offered by Beijing may come with costs.

Since China has presented itself as a security stakeholder in the Pacific region, some experts say Beijing will likely keep building security partnerships with regional countries.  

“[China] seeks to deepen its presence [in the Pacific] through existing mechanisms like policing and its growing maritime presence through its coast guard fleet,” said Anna Powles, an associate professor in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand.  

While China seeks to expand its security footprint in the Pacific, the United States and other democratic countries have tried to counter China’s growing security presence in the Pacific in recent years, including Washington’s efforts to sign a security agreement with Papua New Guinea in 2023. 

WATCH: US and Papua New Guinea sign security pact

Despite these attempts, Walsh in Munich said China is still making inroads in several Pacific island nations, including Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Kiribati.  

“The West doesn’t seem to have an effective response,” he told VOA.  

There is also the question of whether security deals align with the needs of Pacific island countries, said the Griffith Asia Institute’s Cain. 

“While Pacific island countries don’t see China as posing any military threat to them, they need to have relevant security conversations with countries [they are engaging with] in order to talk about what they are really concerned about,” she told VOA.  

To safeguard their interests, Novak at the Atlantic Council said regional countries are likely to try to foster positive relationships with all external partners, whether it’s the United States, Australia, or China.  

“They believe [doing so] will ensure regional stability and sovereignty,” he told VOA. 
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Nairobi — A Kenyan court Monday found police acted unlawfully over the 2022 killing of a Pakistani journalist following a complaint by his widow, who welcomed finally getting “justice” in the long-running case.

Arshad Sharif, a strident critic of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment and supporter of former premier Imran Khan, was shot in the head when Kenyan police opened fire on his car in October two years ago.

His widow Javeria Siddique and two journalist groups in Kenya filed a complaint last year against top police and legal officials over the “arbitrary and unlawful killing” of Sharif and the respondents’ “consequent failure to investigate.”

On Monday, the High Court in Kajiado, a town south of Nairobi, rejected a police claim that the killing was a case of mistaken identity and that officers’ believed they were firing on a stolen vehicle involved in an abduction.

“The use of lethal force against Sharif by shooting him in the head was unlawful and unconstitutional,” Judge Stella Mutuku ruled.

“Authorities violated Sharif’s fundamental right to life.”

Siddique, who followed the trial from Islamabad in Pakistan, expressed gratitude over the court’s decision.

“I cannot fully express my emotions, and I cannot bring Arshad back. However, I have set a precedent that those who kill a journalist cannot escape justice,” the 36-year-old told AFP.

“Today, hired killers are being punished.”

The judge also awarded 10 million shillings ($78,000) in compensation but granted the state’s application to suspend the compensation decision for 30 days to allow it to file an appeal.

‘Great precedent’

Siddique’s lawyer Ochiel Dudley described the decision as a “great precedent for police accountability.”

He told AFP the judge found “Kenya violated Arshad Sharif’s right to life, dignity, and freedom from torture, cruel, and degrading treatment.”

In her ruling, Mutuku ordered Kenya’s legal and police authorities to conclude their investigations into the case.

These respondents must “take responsible actions, including to punish and prosecute police officers who killed Arshad Sharif, if found culpable,” she said.

Sharif fled Pakistan in August 2022, days after interviewing a senior opposition politician who said junior officers in Pakistan’s military should disobey orders that went against “the will of the majority.”

The country has been ruled by the military for several decades of its 75-year history and criticism of the security establishment has long been seen as a red line.

Pakistan is ranked 152 out of 180 countries in a press freedom index compiled by Reporters without Borders, with journalists facing censorship and intimidation.

“In my country today, there is no press freedom whatsoever,” said Siddique, adding that she was “not optimistic” about receiving justice in Pakistan.

But she added: “I finally feel that some form of justice has been achieved.”

Police in Kenya are often accused by rights groups of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings.

Recently, criticism has flared again following the deaths of 39 protesters demonstrating against controversial proposed tax hikes in Kenya.
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Bangkok — One of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic minority groups battling the military government said it captured an airport serving the country’s top world-class beach resort, marking the first time resistance forces have seized such a facility.  

Residents of the area in the southern part of the western state of Rakhine, along with local media, also reported the seizure of Thandwe Airport, also known as Ma Zin Airport, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.  

It’s the latest major setback for the military government that took power in 2021 after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Armed resistance to military rule is taking place in much of the country, led by pro-democracy militants as well as guerrilla groups affiliated with ethnic minorities.  

The Arakan Army said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday night that it had recovered the bodies of more than 400 soldiers from the recent fighting in the area, as well as a cache of ammunition. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claims by the group, which in the past have been disputed.  

The seizure of the airport, one of six in Rakhine, would appear to open the way for the rebels to seize Rakhine’s coastal region, even as they consolidates control over much of the northern part of the state.  

The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Buddhist Rakhine minority, which seeks autonomy for Rakhine state from Myanmar’s central government. It has recently also called itself the Arakha Army.  

Since November last year, the group has been on the offensive and has gained control of nine of 17 townships, along with one in neighboring Chin state. It is also part of an armed ethnic alliance that launched an offensive last October that gained strategic territory in the country’s northeast on the border with China.  

Ngapali, a 7-kilometer (4-mile) long beach on the Bay of Bengal had been getting attention from international tourism but development stalled due to COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict that followed the army takeover.  

Sporadic fighting in villages near Ngapali beach on the Bay of Bengal since April has halted flights to the airport, which serves the beach resort, and most of the 46 hotels and guest houses were shut down.  

A Ngapali hotel executive who had recently escaped the area told The Associated Press on Monday his staff had fled the property.  

A travel agent in the town of Thandwe, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) east of Ngapali, told the AP that she had heard the sound of the fighting coming from outside of the town, but the situation inside was quiet with no guerrillas in the immediate vicinity.  

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear for their safety.
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JAKARTA, Indonesia — At least 12 people died and 18 are missing after torrential rain caused a landslide in an illegal gold mine over the weekend in Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, officials said on Monday.

The landslide on Sunday morning in Suwawa district, Gorontalo province, killed miners and residents living near the illegal mine, said Heriyanto, head of the local rescue agency.

Five survivors had been evacuated, he said, adding that a rescue team was searching for 18 missing people on Monday.

“We have deployed 164 personnel, consisting of the national rescue team, police and military personnel, to search for the missing people,” Heriyanto said.

However, rescuers must walk about 20 kilometers to reach the landslide site and were being hampered by thick mud over the road and continuing rain in the area, Heriyanto said.

“We will try to use an excavator once it’s possible,” he said.

Photos of the affected village shared by the agency showed some houses were flattened by the landslide.

Indonesia’s disaster agency (BNPB) said the landslide has damaged several houses and one bridge.

BNPB also warned residents that rain is still expected in some areas in Gorontalo province on Monday and Tuesday and urge people to be alert in case there’s a further disaster.

A landslide in South Sulawesi killed at least 18 people in South Sulawesi in April, caused by high-intensity rains.

Torrential rain which triggered flash floods and mud slides killed more than 50 people in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province in May.
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Tokyo — Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike won a landslide victory to secure a third term, official election results showed Monday, in a rare triumph for a woman in Japan’s male-dominated politics.

The outcome from Sunday’s vote is also a relief to unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which backed Koike despite her not being a member.

Koike, 71, a former minister and television anchor who has governed one of the world’s biggest cities since 2016, garnered 42.8 percent of votes, results showed.

Her nearest rival was independent candidate Shinji Ishimaru, 41, the former mayor of Akitakata in western Japan, who secured 24.3 percent to pull off a surprise second place.

Koike’s main challenger had been thought to be another woman, former opposition lawmaker, model and TV anchor Renho, 56, who goes by one name, but she garnered just 18.8 percent.

Koike declared victory late Sunday, vowing to strengthen Tokyo’s welfare, economy and natural disaster management, while acknowledging challenges like inflation and Japan’s low birth rate.

“With Tokyoites’ strong support, I was assigned to lead this great city,” Koike told supporters in the megacity of 14 million people.

“I have to upgrade efforts of Tokyo’s reforms, and as I appealed in my election campaign, I will protect Tokyo residents’ lives and livelihoods,” she said.

Japan has never had a woman prime minister and a large majority of lawmakers are men, although Tokyo accounts for a 10th of the national population and a fifth of the economy.

The Tokyo vote comes after new government data showed the birth rate hit a record low of 1.20 last year, with Tokyo’s figure 0.99 — the first Japan region to fall below one.

Koike and her major rivals pledged to expand support for parenting, with the former promising government subsidies for epidurals.

A record 56 people were standing in the election, not all of them serious, with one dressing as “The Joker” and calling for polygamy to be legalized.
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SEOUL, South Korea — A workers’ union at Samsung Electronics in South Korea is set to stage a three-day strike from Monday and has warned it could take further action against the country’s most powerful conglomerate at a later date.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), whose roughly 28,000 members make up over a fifth of the firm’s workforce in South Korea, is demanding the company improve its performance-based bonus system and give workers an extra day of annual leave.

It is not immediately clear how many workers will join the strike, but the union’s poll found about 8,100 members saying they would do so as of Monday morning.

Lee Hyun-kuk, a senior union leader, said in a YouTube broadcast last week that another round of strikes could occur once the three-day stoppage is over if the workers’ demands are not heard.

The union plans to hold a rally on Monday morning near Samsung’s headquarters in Hwaseong, south of Seoul.

Analysts, however, say the strike is unlikely to have a major impact on chip output as most production at the world’s biggest memory chipmaker is automated.

Last month, the union staged a walkout by using annual leave, its first such industrial action, but the company at the time said there was no impact on production or business activity.

Though it will have little impact on output, the labor movement shows decreased staff loyalty at one of the world’s top chipmakers and smartphone manufacturers, analysts say, adding another problem for Samsung as it navigates cutthroat competition in chips used for artificial intelligence applications.

Samsung estimated on Friday a more than 15-fold rise in its second-quarter operating profit, as rebounding semiconductor prices driven by the AI boom lifted earnings from a low base a year ago, but its share price performance has been lagging behind South Korean chip rival SK Hynix.
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Beijing Monday for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Orban’s press chief told state news agency MTI.

“Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s peace mission continues,” Bertalan Havasi was quoted as saying.

This is Orban’s third surprise overseas trip since Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency at the beginning of July, after he traveled to Ukraine and Russia last week on what he called a “peace mission.”

His trip to Moscow drew strong rebukes from his allies.

Hungary, under right-leaning Orban, has become an important trade and investment partner for China, in contrast with some other European Union nations seeking to become less dependent on the world’s second-largest economy.

Orban’s visit also came days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine against what the Western defense alliance has called Russia’s “unprovoked war of aggression.”

Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, was accompanying Orban on the China trip, according to photographs on Szijjarto’s Facebook page.

The foreign ministry canceled late last week a meeting for Monday in Budapest with Germany’s foreign minister and Szijjarto, a German foreign ministry official said Friday.

Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said last week he recognized he had no EU mandate for the trip to Moscow, but that peace could not be made “from a comfortable armchair in Brussels.”
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Dhaka, Bangladesh — Thousands of Bangladeshi university students threw roadblocks across key highways Sunday, demanding the end of “discriminatory” quotas for coveted government jobs, including reserving posts for children of liberation heroes.

Students in almost all major universities took part, demanding a merit-based system for well-paid and massively over-subscribed civil service jobs.

“It’s a do-or-die situation for us,” protest coordinator Nahidul Islam told AFP, during marches at Dhaka University.

“Quotas are a discriminatory system,” the 26-year-old added. “The system has to be reformed.”

The current system reserves more than half of posts, totaling hundreds of thousands of government jobs.

That includes 30% reserved for children of those who fought to win Bangladeshi independence in 1971, 10% for women, and 10% percent set aside for specific districts.

Students said only those quotas supporting ethnic minorities and disabled people — 6% of jobs — should remain.

Critics say the system benefits children of pro-government groups, who back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s founding leader.

Hasina, 76, won her fourth consecutive general election in January, in a vote without genuine opposition parties, with a widespread boycott and a major crackdown against her political opponents.

Critics accuse Bangladeshi courts of rubber-stamping decisions made by her government.

The system was initially abolished after weeks of student protests in 2018.

But in June, Dhaka’s High Court rolled that back, saying the cancellation had been invalid.

‘Wasting their time’

Hasina has condemned the protests, saying the matter had been settled by the court.

“Students are wasting their time,” Hasina told female activists from her party Sunday, Bangladeshi newspapers reported.

“After the court’s verdict, there is no justification for the anti-quota movement.”

Protests began earlier in July and have grown.

“We will bury the quota system,” students chanted Sunday in Bangladesh’s second city Chittagong, where hundreds of protesters marched.

In Dhaka, hundreds of students disrupted traffic for hours, police said.

At the elite Jahangirnagar University, at least 500 students blocked the highway connecting the capital with southeastern Bangladesh “for two hours,” local police chief A.F.M. Shahed told AFP.

Bin Yamin Molla, a protest leader, said at least 30,000 students participated in the protests, although the number could not be verified.

Bangladesh was one of the world’s poorest countries when it gained independence in 1971, but it has grown an average of more than 6% each year since 2009.

Hasina has presided over that breakneck economic growth, with per capita income in the country of 170 million people overtaking India in 2021.

But much of that growth has been on the back of the mostly female factory workforce powering its garment export industry, and economists say there is an acute crisis of jobs for millions of university students.
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Seoul, South Korea — Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said South Korea’s recent military drills near the border between the two nations are an inexcusable and explicit provocation, according to a report from state media KCNA on Monday.

Kim Yo Jong also accused South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of creating tensions on the Korean peninsula to divert public attention away from his poor performance in domestic politics. She cited an online petition calling for Yoon to be impeached, with more than 1 million signatures.

Kim said that in case North Korea judges its own sovereignty as violated, its armed forces will immediately carry out a mission and duty according to its constitution.

The South Korean military has resumed live-fire artillery drills near the western maritime border in late June, the first time since 2018.

Last month, South Korea said it would suspend a military agreement signed with North Korea in 2018 aimed at easing tensions, in protest of North Korea’s trash balloon launches toward the South.
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Islamabad — Taliban security forces in Afghanistan claimed Sunday that they had killed a key Islamic State commander in an eastern province bordering Pakistan. 

An official Taliban media outlet reported that counter-terrorism forces in Nangarhar had raided a hideout of Islamic State Khorasan, also known as IS-K, an Afghan-based affiliate of the transnational extremist group. 

The Al-Mersaad outlet said that Sunday’s action had resulted in the killing of “Zakirullah … known as Abu Sher” and identified him as IS Khorasan’s military leader for the border province’s Achin district.  

The media report said “Taliban special forces” had concluded the operation in the Mohmand Dara district.  

It was not possible to verify Al-Mersaad’s claims from independent sources, nor have Taliban government officials commented on the operation in a province where IS Khorasan launched its extremist activities in Afghanistan and the region at large in 2015, with Achin as its headquarters.  

The Taliban returned to power in 2021 when all the United States-led NATO forces withdrew from the country after almost 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war. U.S. forces regularly conducted operations against IS Khorasan and killed several of its key leaders.  

The extremist group intensified suicide bombings and other attacks against security forces and members of the Afghan Shiite community after the Taliban takeover. The violence has killed hundreds of people, including prominent Taliban leaders and religious scholars.  

Taliban authorities say their sustained military actions against IS Khorasan hideouts have significantly degraded its ability to pose a threat to Afghanistan and beyond.   

De facto Afghan authorities have accused Pakistan and Tajikistan of “training and nurturing” IS Khorasan operatives on their respective soils.  

Both neighbors of Afghanistan have dismissed the accusation as frivolous and, in turn, blame the de facto rulers in Kabul for failing to prevent transnational terrorist groups from using their territory to threaten regional stability.  

A quarterly U.S. Department of Defense report made public in late May noted that Afghanistan-based IS Khorasan had “demonstrated increased transnational terrorism capabilities through large-scale, multiple casualty attacks” in the region.  

The report cited a January suicide bombing in neighboring Iran’s Kerman city of a memorial for a top Iranian military commander that killed at least 100 mourners. It added that IS Khorasan gunmen stormed a concert venue near Moscow in March, killing at least 140 people in what was described as the worst terrorist attack in Russia in 20 years. 

In March, General Michael Kurilla, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, testified to Congress on the growing terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan, warning that Islamic State affiliates “retain the capability and the will” to attack the United States and its allies in Europe in as little as six months. 

The U.S. quarterly report stated that despite pledging to deny terrorist groups a sanctuary in Afghanistan, the Taliban “continued to privately provide shelter to al-Qaeda senior leaders while publicly denying that al-Qaeda uses its territory to pose threats to outside countries.”  

In a January report, the United Nations Security Council said that IS Khorasan “has continued to pose a major threat in Afghanistan and the region despite losses in territory, casualties, and high attrition among senior and mid-tier leadership figures.” 
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KATHMANDU — Heavy rains triggered landslides and flash floods killing at least 11 people in the last 36 hours in Nepal and blocking key highways and roads, officials said Sunday.

Eight people were missing, either washed away by floods or buried in landslides, while 12 others were injured and being treated in hospitals, police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki said.

“Rescue workers are trying to clear the landslides and open the roads,” Karki told Reuters, adding heavy equipment was being used to clear debris.

In southeastern Nepal, the Koshi River, which causes deadly floods in the eastern Indian state of Bihar almost every year, was flowing above the danger level, a district official said.

“The flow of Koshi is rising and we have asked residents to remain alert about possible floods,” Bed Raj Phuyal, a senior official of Sunsari district where the river flows, told Reuters. 

He said at 0900 hours (0315 hours GMT) water flow in Koshi River was 369,000 cusecs per second, more than double its normal flow of 150,000 cusecs.

Cusec is the measurement of the flow of water and one cusec is equal to one cubic foot per second. 

Authorities said all 56 sluice gates of the Koshi Barrage had been opened to drain out water compared with about 10-12 during a normal situation.

Authorities said the flows of Narayani, Rapti and Mahakali rivers in the west were also rising.

In hill-ringed Kathmandu, several rivers have overflown their banks, flooded roads and inundated many houses.

Local media showed people wading through waist-deep water or residents using buckets to empty their houses.

At least 50 people across Nepal have died in landslides, floods and lightning strikes since mid-June when annual monsoon rains started. 

Hundreds of people die every year in landslides and flash floods that are common in mostly mountainous Nepal during the monsoon season which normally starts in mid-June and continues through mid-September.

In the northeastern Indian state of Assam, floods have killed dozens and displaced thousands of people in the past few days. 
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TOKYO — Voters in Tokyo cast ballots Sunday to decide whether to reelect conservative Yuriko Koike as governor of Japan’s influential capital for a third four-year term.

The vote was also seen as a test for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s governing party, which supports the incumbent, the first woman to lead the Tokyo city government.

Tokyo, a city of 13.5 million people with outsized political and cultural power and a budget equaling some nations, is one of Japan’s most influential political posts.

A record 55 candidates challenged Koike, and one of the top contenders was also a woman — a liberal-leaning former parliament member who uses only her first name, Renho, and was backed by opposition parties.

A win by Koike would be a relief for Kishida’s conservative governing party, which she has long been affiliated with. Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, unofficially backed her campaign.

Renho, running as an independent but supported by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, slammed Koike’s connection with Kishida’s party, which has been hit by a widespread slush fund scandal. A victory for Renho would be a major setback for Kishida’s chances in the governing party’s leadership vote in September.

While the two high-profile women garnered national attention, Shinji Ishimaru, a former mayor of Akitakata town in Hiroshima, was seen to have gained popularity among young voters.

The main issues in the campaign included measures for the economy, disaster resilience for Tokyo and low birth numbers. When Japan’s national fertility rate fell to a record low 1.2 babies per woman last year, Tokyo’s 0.99 rate was the lowest for the country.

Koike’s policies focused on providing subsidies for married parents expecting babies and those raising children. Renho called for increased support for young people to address their concerns about jobs and financial stability, arguing that would help improve prospects for marrying and having families.

Another focus of attention was a controversial redevelopment of Tokyo’s beloved park area, Jingu Gaien, which Koike approved but later faced criticism over its lack of transparency and suspected environmental impact.

Koike, a stylish and media savvy former TV newscaster, was first elected to parliament in 1992 at age 40. She served in a number of key Cabinet posts, including environment and defense ministers, as part of the long-reigning Liberal Democratic Party.

Renho, known for voicing sharp questions in parliament, was born to a Japanese mother and Taiwanese father and doesn’t use her family name. A former model and newscaster, she was elected to parliament in 2004 and served as administrative reform minister in the government led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan.
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Mandalay, Myanmar — Myanmar ethnic minority fighters were battling their way into a town housing a regional military command, one of their leaders said Saturday. Meanwhile, the junta’s second-in-command arrived in China for an official visit.

Vice Senior General Soe Win arrived in Qingdao in Shandong province to attend a “Green Development Forum” hosted by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the junta’s information office said in a statement.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has not visited China since the 2021 coup that plunged the country into turmoil.

Myanmar’s ethnic soldiers were surrounding the northern Shan state town of Lashio, home to the junta’s northeastern command, General Tar Bhone Kyaw of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) told AFP.

Lashio also sits on a major highway that runs from Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay to China’s Yunnan province.

Clashes first broke out Wednesday as the ethnic fighters moved into the area.

A member of a local group of volunteers helping to treat the injured and bury the dead told AFP on Saturday that at least 16 civilians had been killed since fighting broke out in Lashio.

“There has been very strong fighting around the town,” the rescuer said. “The fighting is still going on.”

“We heard they (the TNLA) entered the town yesterday from the south.”

Flights to the town from commercial hub Yangon had been canceled since Wednesday morning, an airport source in Yangon told AFP earlier this week.

The so-called “Three Brotherhood Alliance” of ethnic armed groups launched an offensive last October against the military near Lashio and along the Chinese border.

Ethnic minority armed groups were also making progress against junta troops in the town of Mogok, to the west of Lashio, Tar Bhone Kyaw said.

“The western part is got,” the general said of Mogok, which is surrounded by hills rich with rubies, sapphires, spinel, aquamarine and other semi-precious stones.

“We are trying to get the eastern part,” he said.

The alliance has seized swaths of territory and lucrative border crossings, dealing the junta its biggest blow since it seized power in 2021.

China brokered a cease-fire in January between the military and the alliance — made up of the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the TNLA.

But late last month, the TNLA launched fresh attacks in Shan state and the neighboring Mandalay region.

Myanmar’s borderlands are home to a myriad of ethnic armed groups, many of which have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Japan’s foreign minister on Saturday announced a joint project with Cambodia to share knowledge and technology on land mine removal with countries around the world, including Ukraine. 

Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa made her comments during a visit to the Cambodian Mine Action Center, which was formed in the 1990s at the end of the Southeast Asian nation’s decades of civil war. It seeks to deal with an estimated 4 million to 6 million land mines and other unexploded munitions left strewn around the countryside.  

“Cambodia, which has steadily advanced mine removal within its own country, is now a leader in mine action around the world,” she noted, adding that Japan has consistently cooperated in Cambodia’s mine removal since the civil war. 

Cambodian deminers are among the world’s most experienced, and several thousand have been sent in the past decade under U.N. auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East. Cambodia in 2022 began training deminers from Ukraine, which also suffers from a high density of land mines and other unexploded munitions as the two-year Russian invasion drags on. 

“As a concrete cooperation under the Japan Cambodia Landmine Initiative, Japan will provide full-scale assistance to humanitarian mine action in Ukraine,” she said. “Next week, we will provide Ukraine with a large demining machine, and next month, here in Cambodia, we will train Ukrainian personnel on how to operate the machine.” 

The NGO Landmine Monitor in its 2022 report listed both Cambodia and Ukraine among nine countries with massive mine contamination, meaning they had more than 100 square kilometers of uncleared fields. 

Since the end of the fighting in Cambodia, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 have been injured by leftover war explosives, although the average annual death toll has dropped from several thousand to less than 100. 

Despite a very active demining program, many dangerous munitions remain in place, posing a hazard to villagers. 

Cambodia’s training of Ukrainian deminers, in Poland as well as Cambodia, came after former Prime Minister Hun Sen — in an unusual move for a nation that usually aligns itself with Russia and China — condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “Cambodia is always against any country that invades another country.” 

Cambodia was one of nearly 100 U.N. member countries that co-sponsored a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. 

Several other countries, including the United States and Germany, have already provided Ukraine with demining assistance. 

Kamikawa also held talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Hun Sen, his father who stepped down last year after ruling for 38 years. 

She and her Cambodian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea, signed agreements for a concessional loan from Tokyo of up to $51.6 million for upgrading the highway between the capital, Phnom Penh, to the border with Thailand, and grant aid up to $2.4 million to support junior administrative officials to study in Japan, a Japanese Embassy statement said. 

Kamikawa next goes to the Philippines, where she and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara will hold talks on Monday with their Philippine counterparts. They are set to discuss signing a mutual defense pact that would allow each country to deploy troops on the other’s territory. 
…

 Bangkok, Thailand — Journalists reporting on illicit activity connected to the billion-dollar scam center industry in Cambodia say they are facing security risks. 

Physical and online harassment, surveillance and legal threats related to media coverage have all been reported by local and foreign journalists. 

Reporting on the centers, along with the associated allegations of fraud, human trafficking and other abuses is becoming a “risky endeavor,” said American freelancer Danielle Keeton-Olsen. 

Details of the scam centers operating throughout the Southeast Asia region, including Cambodia, are outlined in a May report by the United States Institute of Peace, or USIP. 

In Cambodia alone, the USIP report found 100,000 scammers generating an estimated $12.8 billion in 2023 — close to half the country’s formal GDP. Most compounds that house the scammers are operated by Chinese gangs, though some are allegedly linked to local elites, the report found. 

Those working in the centers are often lured into phony business ventures, becoming victims themselves. Reports have highlighted evidence of human trafficking. 

VOA contacted the Cambodian government by email and phone but didn’t receive a reply.   

But Chou Bun Eng, deputy chair of the government’s police-led National Committee for Counter Trafficking said earlier this year that 80% of cases alleging human trafficking are “false.”  

Journalists reporting on the centers say they’ve been harassed and, in one case, detained. 

Journalists risk physical harm 

Cambodian journalist Mech Dara says police detained him while he was investigating a scam center in the city of Sihanoukville. At the time, Dara worked for the now shuttered Voice of Democracy, or VOD.  

Keeton-Olsen also reported on the scam centers for VOD English.  

“We would go around in a site in Sihanoukville and try to figure out everything that we could, get some eyewitness testimonies, try to, like, assert who the ownership is and triangulate from there. That was a really risky endeavor,” she told VOA.

“There were some close calls, you could get scolded by a security guard or just in general the hair standing up on the back,” she said. 

While journalists often face difficulties accessing information in Cambodia, they risk the possibility of physical harm reporting on scam centers. 

“It’s a dangerous industry, and there’s evidence that there are gangs involved,” she said. “There’s evidence of violence happening toward workers or people associated with it. In terms of threats to safety [for journalists], they definitely exist.” 

With one story, said Keeton-Olsen, a company threatened them with legal action.  

“We actually ended up writing about that for VOD because [the company] came in and they were saying ‘we might serve you with a legal letter,’ so my editor wrote a story about it,” she said. 

Nathan Paul Southern, a Scottish journalist based in Phnom Penh, said he also received threats. 

“We’ve been told by people who are connected to the government that we do need to watch our backs, that we are in danger,” he told VOA. “We have been followed quite a few time … [and] we’ve had a few physical altercations in and around the scam centers, where essentially various different gangsters have tried to grab us or stop us from leaving and get close to violent with us.” 

Thousands ‘held against their will’

While reporting on an online gambling site working out of a compound in the city of Bavet, Southern said he learned that “thousands of people were being held against their will.” 

The company denied the allegations, he said, then served him with a cease-and-desist letter. 

“It seemed it was to scare us financially,” he said. “Most of it, whether that’s from the criminal groups or the government, has been them letting us know that they’re watching us.” 

Risks associated with scam center reporting add to an already tough reporting environment, where government officials have cracked down on independent media. 

“Journalism continues to be a dangerous profession in Cambodia,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy officer at Reporters Without Borders, also known as RSF. 

“Reporters can be arrested and sometimes spend months in prison on trumped-up charges of ‘terrorism,'” she told VOA. “At the same time, covering corruption cases that directly or indirectly implicate the government has become virtually impossible.” 

The country ranks 151 out of 180 on the RSF World Press Freedom Index, where 1 signals a good media environment. In the past year, three media outlets were stripped of their licenses, including VOD. 
…

TAIPEI — Taiwan prosecutors said on Saturday they were investigating a senior official and member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party who deals with China on suspicion of bribery. He said he had done nothing wrong. 

Cheng Wen-tsan is head of the Straits Exchange Foundation under the China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council that deals with day-to-day issues like accidents involving Taiwanese in China. The foundation is technically private because the governments in Beijing and Taipei do not recognize each other or have any official relations. 

Prosecutors in the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan, where Cheng was mayor from 2014-2022, said he had been summoned for questioning on Friday on bribery suspicions and that they had applied to a court to detain him. 

It did not give details of the allegations against him. 

Cheng, in a statement issued via his lawyer and released by the foundation, denied wrongdoing. 

“I have not committed any illegal acts, and I will cooperate with the judicial investigation. I hope to clarify the truth and prove my innocence as soon as possible,” he said. 

Taiwan’s presidential office said it respects the judiciary and hopes investigators will clarify the matter as soon as possible.
…

MANILA — The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said Saturday that China’s largest coastguard vessel has anchored in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, in the South China Sea, and it is meant to intimidate its smaller Asian neighbor. 

The China coastguard’s 165-meter “monster ship” entered Manila’s 200-nautical mile EEZ on July 2, spokesperson for the PCG Jay Tarriela told a news forum. 

The PCG warned the Chinese vessel it was in the Philippine’s EEZ and asked about their intentions, he said. 

“It’s an intimidation on the part of the China Coast Guard,” Tarriela said. “We’re not going to pull out and we’re not going to be intimidated.” 

China’s embassy in Manila and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China’s coast guard has no publicly available contact information. 

The Chinese ship, which has also deployed a small boat, was anchored 731 meters away from the PCG’s vessel, Tarriela said. In May, the PCG deployed a ship to the Sabina shoal to deter small-scale reclamation by China, which denied the claim. 

China has carried out extensive land reclamation on some islands in the South China Sea, building air force and other military facilities, causing concern in Washington and around the region. 

China claims most of the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, as its own territory. 

Beijing rejects the 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims had no legal basis. 

Following a high-level dialog, the Philippines and China agreed on Tuesday for the need to “restore trust” and “rebuild confidence” to better manage maritime disputes. 

The Philippines has turned down offers from the United States, its treaty ally, to assist operations in the South China Sea, despite a flare-up with China over routing resupply missions to Filipino troops on a contested shoal. 
…

GENEVA  — A prominent human rights expert is calling on governments to end the billion-dollar arms trade with Myanmar’s military, which is “helping sustain the junta’s brutal campaign of violence against civilians across Myanmar.”   

In a report to the U.N. human rights council Thursday, Thomas Andrews, special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, accused international finance systems of helping Myanmar procure the weapons that have “enabled attacks on civilians” and have killed, maimed and displaced thousands of people.   

Since the military junta toppled the country’s democratically elected government in February 2021, the U.N. human rights office reports at least 5,280 civilians, including 1,022 women and 667 children, “have been killed at the hands of the military.”    

Additionally, the agency reports at least 3 million people have been displaced — “the vast majority still without proper shelter,” and more than 20,000 political prisoners remain in detention.   

Andrews told the council that in the two years ending March 2024, the Myanmar military has purchased $630 million in weapons, dual-use technologies, manufacturing equipment, and raw materials through the international finance system.   

The special rapporteur identified 16 foreign banks that have facilitated transactions related to military procurement by the junta, noting that the junta and its cronies have worked to obscure the specific nature of the transactions “including by setting up military front companies.”   

He referenced a report he issued last year, “The Billion Dollar Death Trade,” in which he identified Singapore as the junta’s third largest source of weapons and related materials.   

Because of that report, he told the council that “to its credit, the government took immediate action and launched an investigation of my findings. I am very pleased to report that the junta’s purchase of military supplies from Singapore dropped by nearly 90 percent since the publication of that report.”   

“Unfortunately, military procurement through Thailand has moved in the opposite direction,” he said, underscoring the junta imported nearly $130 million in weapons and military from Thailand-registered suppliers, “more than double the total from the previous year.”   

He observed, however, “It is important to note that as was the case with Singapore last year, I found no evidence that the government of Thailand was involved or even aware of these transactions,” adding that he was hopeful Thailand based entities, including its banks “will no longer be facilitating the transfer of weapons and weapons materials to the military junta.”   

Andrews called on financial institutions to stop facilitating transactions with banks that are controlled by the military junta and for governments to sanction those junta-controlled banks, including Myanmar Economic Bank.   

The special rapporteur garnered support from member states, including the United States, for his appeal.     

“We applaud Singapore for taking action to cut arms supplies to the military and call on others to follow suit,” Michele Taylor, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council, said during the council’s interactive dialogue.   

“We urge the Security Council to use all the tools at its disposal to prevent future atrocities, including by reinforcing this body’s call to cut off the military’s access to jet fuel, and to support efforts to find a peaceful and just resolution to the crisis,” she said.   

Andrews said the people of Myanmar need and deserve the support of the council and governments. He emphasized they also need international action, “not only because of the military junta’s relentless attacks on the people of Myanmar, but because there are opportunities available to your governments right now that would make an enormous difference in how and when this crisis comes to an end.”   

“The tide is turning in Myanmar, the junta is on its heels, and the opportunity to take decisive action is now,” he said, pointing out that civilian resistance forces are gaining ground.  

He said the government’s military bases are falling, tens of thousands of troops “have been lost to casualties, surrender, or defections,” and the economy is being squeezed. 

“In response, the junta is doubling down on its brutal attacks on civilian populations,” he said. “Junta leaders appear committed to destroying the country that they cannot control.”   

He said the world must not allow that to happen.   

“We now have clear evidence that actions taken by the international community to isolate the junta and degrade its capacity to attack the people of Myanmar are working.     

“But more must be done and done now to build on this progress including strategic coordination between all governments who support human rights to stop the flow of sophisticated weapons of war that are being used to attack innocent Myanmar civilians,” he said. 
…

Koh Tao, Thailand — A diver glides over an expanse of bone-white coral branches, recording the fish that dart between the ghostly arms extending from the sea floor off the Thai island of Koh Tao.

Nannalin Pornprasertsom is one of a growing number of scuba divers learning conservation and citizen science techniques as coral reefs experience a fourth global bleaching event.

After a two-week course in Koh Tao, the 14-year-old can identify coral types, carry out reef restoration, and help scientific research on coral health by recording the color and tone of outcroppings at dive sites.

“It’s just something that I can do that will have a good consequence for the environment,” Nannalin, who has been diving since she was 12, told AFP after a series of dives.

“I want to help the reef.”

And she is not alone.

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors — better known as PADI, one of the world’s leading dive training organizations — says conservation certifications jumped over six percent globally from 2021-2023.

This year, it is launching a major shark and ray census, harnessing its network of divers to collect data that will shape protection policies.

On Koh Tao, Black Turtle Dive offers courses on everything from how to properly “dive against debris” — collecting marine plastic or stranded fishing nets — to coral restoration techniques.

“There’s an increased awareness,” said Steve Minks, a certified conservation instructor at Black Turtle.

“There’s a lot of bleaching going on and there’s a lot of concern about the marine environment.”

Death spiral

Coral polyps are animals that depend on algae to provide most of their food. These algae also generally give the reef its color.

But when the sea is too warm, the polyps expel the algae. The reef turns white and the coral begins to starve.

Coral bleaching has been recorded in more than 60 countries since early 2023, threatening reefs that are key to ocean biodiversity and support fishing and tourism globally.

The death spiral is everywhere in the waters of the Gulf of Thailand around Koh Tao.

Worst affected are branching species that grow quickly, but are also less resilient.

If water temperatures come down, they will have a chance at recovery. But for now, their spectral stems are even visible from the surface, glimmering through the aquamarine water.

“I was not ready for that much bleaching, it’s quite an impact,” admits instructor Sandra Rubio.

The 28-year-old says bleaching and other marine degradation are driving divers to take her conservation courses.

“People want to start learning because they see these kinds of changes,” she told AFP.

“And even if they don’t really understand why, they know it’s not good.”

She walks students through how to identify species, including soft coral. Wave at it, she explains, mimicking wiggling a hand in the water, and wait to see if it “waves back.”

The skills taught at Black Turtle and other dive shops are not simply theoretical.

Artificial coral reefs are dotted around Koh Tao, actively rebuilding marine habitats.

And Nannalin’s data on coral health is part of Coral Watch — a global citizen science project that has produced numerous research papers.

“What we’re doing is collecting data for scientists so they can actually work with governments and authorities,” explained Minks.

‘Doing our best’

On a sunny afternoon on Koh Tao, a boat carries a starfish-shaped rebar structure designed by schoolchildren out to sea, where it will become Global Reef’s latest coral restoration project.

Since it was founded two years ago, Global Reef has transplanted around 2,000 coral colonies, with a survival rate of about 75 percent, said Gavin Miller, the group’s scientific program director.

“It’s not really going to maybe save coral reefs globally… but what it does do is have a very, very large impact locally,” he said.

“We have snappers returning. We have resident puffer fish.”

Global Reef also hosts interns who are training artificial intelligence programs to identify fish in 360-degree videos for reef health surveys, and collaborates regularly with the dive school next door.

And they are studying the surprising resilience of some local coral to persistently high temperatures.

“These might be sort of refuges for coral,” explained Miller.

This year’s bleaching has left many marine enthusiasts despondent, but for conservation divers on Koh Tao, it is also a call to arms.

“In the previous generations, we didn’t have this research and education that we have now,” said Nannalin.

“I think people my age should make the most of it and try their best to reverse the things that have already been done.”

The work also helps Rubio balance the sadness she feels at the changes below the water.

“It’s not like we are going to change things from one day to another, but we are doing our best, and that is the best feeling,” she said.

“I’m working every day to do something good for the environment and for the reef that I love.”
…

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Crocodile numbers in Australia’s Northern Territory must be either maintained or reduced and cannot be allowed to outstrip the human population, the territory’s leader said after a 12-year-old girl was killed while swimming.

The crocodile population has exploded across Australia’s tropical north since it became a protected species under Australian law in the 1970s, growing from 3,000 when hunting was outlawed to 100,000 now. The Northern Territory has just over 250,000 people.

The girl’s death came weeks after the territory approved a 10-year plan for management of crocodiles, which permits the targeted culling of the reptiles at popular swimming spots but stopped short of a return to mass culls. Crocodiles are considered a risk in most of the Northern Territory’s waterways, but crocodile tourism and farming are major economic drivers.

“We can’t have the crocodile population outnumber the human population in the Northern Territory,” Chief Minister Eva Lawler told reporters Thursday, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “We do need to keep our crocodile numbers under control.”

In this week’s deadly attack, the girl vanished while swimming in a creek near the Indigenous community of Palumpa, southwest of the territory’s capital, Darwin. After an intense search, her remains were found in the river system where she disappeared with injuries confirming a crocodile attack.

The Northern Territory recorded the deaths of 15 people in crocodile attacks between 2005 and 2014 with two more in 2018. Because saltwater crocodiles can live up to 70 years and grow throughout their lives — reaching up to 7 meters in length — the proportion of large crocodiles is also rising.

Lawler, who said the death was “heartbreaking,” told reporters that 500,000 Australia dollars ($337,000) had been allocated in the Northern Territory budget for crocodile management in the coming year.

The region’s opposition leader, Lia Finocchiaro, told reporters that more investment was needed, according to NT News.

The girl’s death “sends a message that the Territory is unsafe and on top of law and order and crime issues, what we don’t need is more bad headlines,” she said.

Professor Grahame Webb, a prominent Australian crocodile scientist, told the AuBC that more community education was needed and the government should fund Indigenous ranger groups and research into crocodile movements.

“If we don’t know what the crocodiles are likely to do, we’re still going to have the same problem,” he said. “Culling is not going to solve the problem.”

Efforts were continuing to trap the crocodile that attacked the girl, police said on Thursday. Saltwater crocodiles are territorial and the one responsible is likely to remain in nearby waterways.
…

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand will drastically ease zoning restrictions in a bid to “flood the market” with land for homes and override the powers of local councils to curb development, the nation’s housing minister said in announcing reforms to what he called one of the world’s least affordable housing markets.

“It’s about allowing maximum choice and opportunity for people to build and develop,” said the minister, Chris Bishop, in a speech in Auckland this week. “Let’s get away from the idea that planners can plan our cities and let actual individuals and families decide how they live their lives.”

The new measures would require local councils — which decide what land in New Zealand is used for — to free up “bucketloads” of additional space for housing development, Bishop said. They must now accommodate the next 30 years of projected growth instead of the next three as is currently required.

Councils will also be barred from imposing urban limits on cities and forced to permit mixed-use development, with an end to rules mandating balconies and minimum sizes for apartments, in a suite of changes widely endorsed by analysts.

“It’s very easy for local councils to say no to growth because their residents don’t want it, because they don’t benefit from it, but the costs of those decisions are falling on central government,” said Stuart Donovan, a housing economist with the New Zealand thinktank Motu, who was speaking from Brisbane, Australia.

Bishop’s pitch that the market, rather than officials, should decide what and where homes are needed was a fresh attempt from a series of New Zealand housing ministers to resolve a chronic shortage of homes that has frustrated successive governments and marred the political fortunes of some. While two decades of runaway prices have eased since a 2022 peak, they remain far higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic and an average home costs eight times the average income.

The proportion of income spent on rent was higher in New Zealand than in any other country, Bishop said Thursday, citing research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a grouping of mostly developed Western nations.

But in a country where housing stock is comprised overwhelmingly of single-family, standalone dwellings, efforts by lawmakers to cool prices before have at times been cautious. Favorable tax conditions have made housing the most popular form of investment in New Zealand, with half of all household wealth bound up in land and homes, according to the country’s Reserve Bank — and some voters have rejected measures that would lower prices.

Remarks Bishop made to reporters last month that homes were “too expensive” and prices should be reduced were so unusual from a lawmaker for one of the major political parties that they prompted news headlines. But analysts said Thursday that public opinion had changed as a generation of younger New Zealanders found themselves priced out of the housing market.

“At one point in time, it would be, ‘I want house prices to be affordable for my children, but I don’t want my house price to fall,'” said Shamubeel Eaqub, an independent economist who specializes in housing. “But I think there is a general recognition that things have gotten so far out of kilter that something has to change.”

The new measures would not flatten the market, Eaqub said; New Zealand’s shortage of homes was so great that it would still take decades to resolve. But he was among many analysts to welcome the shift.

It follows a test case on easing restrictions in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, where a plan introduced in 2016 that increased housing density prompted a surge in building and reduced rents.

But Auckland’s mayor decried the fresh measures.

“I am wary of any policies that will lead to urban sprawl,” Wayne Brown posted to LinkedIn. “We also don’t want to encourage low quality housing at the detriment of our unique landscapes, waterways, and harbors. Or make traffic congestion worse.”

The Parliamentary opposition also rejected the reforms.

“It’s all well and good to want to ensure development opportunities, but unless the Government fronts with infrastructure money, councils are limited in what they can offer by ways of expansion,” said the Labour party’s housing spokesperson, Kieran McAnulty, in an emailed statement.

“Labour is open to any measure that will lead to more housing and will lend support where it is likely to work, but not at the expense of building standards or loss of elite productive soil,” he added, referring to the relaxation of urban limits into rural areas. Bishop said building standards would remain unchanged.

“People often complain to me about all these shoebox apartments and I agree that they won’t be the right housing solution for everyone,” he said. “But do you know what is smaller than a shoebox apartment? A car or an emergency housing motel room.”
…

KATHMANDU, Nepal — The highest camp on the world’s tallest mountain is littered with garbage that is going to take years to clean up, according to a Sherpa who led a team that worked to clear trash and dig up dead bodies frozen for years near Mount Everest’s peak.

The Nepal government-funded team of soldiers and Sherpas removed 11 tons of garbage, four dead bodies and a skeleton from Everest during this year’s climbing season.

Ang Babu Sherpa, who led the team of Sherpas, said there could be as much as 40-50 tons of garbage still at South Col, the last camp before climbers make their attempt on the summit.

“The garbage left there was mostly old tents, some food packaging and gas cartridges, oxygen bottles, tent packs, and ropes used for climbing and tying up tents,” he said, adding that the garbage is in layers and frozen at the 8,000-meter altitude where the South Col camp is located.

Since the peak was first conquered in 1953, thousands of climbers have scaled it and many have left behind more than just their footprints.

In recent years, a government requirement that climbers bring back their garbage or lose their deposits, along with increased awareness among climbers about the environment, have significantly reduced the amount of garbage left behind. However, that was not the case in earlier decades.

“Most of the garbage is from older expeditions,” Ang Babu said.

The Sherpas on the team collected garbage and bodies from the higher-attitude areas, while the soldiers worked at lower levels and the base camp area for weeks during the popular spring climbing season, when weather conditions are more favorable.

Ang Babu said the weather was a big challenge for their work in the South Col area, where oxygen levels are about one-third the normal amount, winds can quickly turn to blizzard conditions and temperatures plunge.

“We had to wait for good weather when the sun would melt the ice cover. But waiting a long time in that attitude and conditions is just not possible,” he said. “It’s difficult to stay for long with the oxygen level very low.”

Digging out the garbage is also a big task, since it is frozen inside ice and breaking the blocks is not easy.

It took two days to dig out one body near the South Col which was frozen in a standing position deep in the ice, he said. Part way through, the team had to retreat to lower camps because of the deteriorating weather, and then resume after it improved.

Another body was much higher up at 8,400 meters and it took 18 hours to drag it to Camp 2, where a helicopter picked it up.

The bodies were flown to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu for identification.

Of the 11 tons of garbage removed, three tons of decomposable items were taken to villages near Everest’s base and the remaining eight were carried by porters and yaks and then taken by trucks to Kathmandu. There it was sorted for recycling at a facility operated by Agni Ventures, an agency that manages recyclable waste.

“The oldest waste we received was from 1957, and that was rechargeable batteries for torch lights,” said Sushil Khadga of the agency.

Why do climbers leave garbage behind?

“At that high altitude, life is very difficult and oxygen is very low. So climbers and their helpers are more focused on saving themselves,” Khadga said.
…

KABUL, Afghanistan — In parts of Afghanistan where there are no street names or house numbers, utility companies and their customers have adopted a creative approach for connecting. They use mosques as drop points for bills and cash, a “pay and pray” system.

Now the national postal service wants to phase this out by putting mailboxes on every street across the country, part of a plan to modernize a service long challenged by bureaucracy and war.

The lofty aspirations include introducing access to shopping via e-commerce sites and issuing debit cards for online purchases. It will be a leap in a country where most of the population is unbanked, air cargo is in its infancy and international courier companies don’t deliver even to the capital, Kabul.

The changes mean Afghans will pay higher service fees; a challenge as more than half the population already relies on humanitarian aid to survive.

The Afghan Post, like much of the country, still does everything on paper. “Nobody uses email,” said its business development director, Zabihullah Omar. “Afghanistan is a member of the Universal Postal Union, but when we compare ourselves to other countries it is at a low level and in the early stages.”

The postal service has 400 to 500 branches across the country and is key for completing administrative tasks like obtaining a passport or driver’s license. It distributes up to 15,000 passports daily.

Another popular service is the certification of documents for admission to higher education or overseas institutions. The main Kabul branch has dedicated counters for it along with VIP lanes and a women-only area.

Post offices in Afghanistan are vital for women wanting to access services or products they would otherwise be denied, since they are often barred from entering ministries or other official premises.

But the specter of the Taliban’s edicts targeting women and girls also looms at the Afghan Post.

At the entrance to the main Kabul branch, a sign tells women to correctly wear hijab, or the Islamic headscarf. One picture shows a woman with a red cross over her visible face. The other has a green check mark over the face because only her eyes are seen.

One woman visiting the branch was a 29-year-old medical graduate from western Farah province, who gave her name as Arzo. The Education Ministry wouldn’t let her in and dispatched her to the post office instead to get paperwork done.

She wanted to get her documents certified, a practical measure amid the country’s precarious economic situation and the sweeping restrictions on women and girls.

“Anything can happen at any time,” she said. “There are no jobs. There are many problems.”

It was her first time using a post office. She paid 640 afghanis, or $9, for each document and called the fees too high.

A more satisfied customer was 22-year-old Alam Noori from eastern Paktika province who came to collect his passport. “Piece of cake,” he said in English. In the past, he also used a post office to collect his driver’s license.

“I came to know about the post office through social media,” he said. “People in the city use it a lot because they are aware of it, but those in villages and districts aren’t.”

The Afghan Post’s business development director, Omar, wants services to be easier for people but conceded that it will take time.

“In most government agencies, people are wandering from public service to public service, so I want to serve people here, and that makes me very happy,” he said. “There is a need for a post office wherever there is a population.”

That’s where the plan to have a mailbox on every street comes in. They will be for paying bills, sending mail and submitting documents for processing.

But handwritten letters are disappearing, as they are in many parts of the world.

Hamid Khan Hussain Khel is one of the country’s 400 postmen, zipping around the capital on a motorcycle bearing Afghan Post’s jaunty blue and yellow. But he has yet to deliver a personal letter, despite serving the city’s population of 5 million for two years. He cited the popularity of smartphones and messaging apps.

He enjoys the work, which is less dangerous than it was during the decadeslong conflict.

“When we meet people, their satisfaction makes us happy,” he said. “I haven’t seen a person not smile when they get their documents.”
…

taipei, taiwan — As the maritime conflict between China and the Philippines escalates, Japan and the Philippines are set to meet Monday for talks to deepen their security cooperation.  

The talks in Manila, known as the “two plus two” meeting, will bring together the Japanese and Philippine foreign and defense ministers to potentially finalize a key defense agreement.  

Romeo Saturnino Brawner Jr., chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said at a press conference on Thursday that he hopes the Philippines will sign the defense agreement, known as the Reciprocal Access Agreement, or RAA, with Japan, which will allow either side to deploy troops on the other’s territory.  

The RAA also stipulates how the two countries are to arrange weapons and ammunition when they conduct joint training, and it lays out the procedures in the event of any accidents.

Philippine Senator Francis Tolentino said earlier that the draft agreement also specifies the legal status of the Philippine military and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces when they temporarily stay in each other’s country. 

Japan and the Philippines are also expected to discuss a Japanese program, launched in April 2023, that provides weapons and equipment free of charge to like-minded countries to increase security cooperation. In November, Japan provided the Philippines with five surveillance radars to strengthen its coastal supervision capabilities. 

Nations have grown closer, says expert

Saya Kiba, an associate professor of international relations at Kobe University of Foreign Studies in Japan, says that Tokyo and Manila have had increasingly close relations in recent years. 

Kiba told VOA Mandarin in a video interview that in addition to discussing existing cooperation frameworks, the two countries are expected to plan further defense exchanges. 

The talks come at a time of escalating tensions over China’s actions in the disputed South China Sea. 

On June 17, Chinese and Philippine military vessels collided at the Second Thomas Shoal (“Ren’ai Reef” in Chinese), part of the Spratly Island chain where several nations have overlapping claims. A Filipino crew member lost a finger in the crash that Manila described as “intentional-high speed ramming” by the Chinese coast guard. 

On July 4, the Philippine military asked China to pay over $1 million (60 million pesos) in financial compensation for the June collision. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the Philippines to stop “provocations,” saying that China was safeguarding its rights and enforcing the law. It said the Philippines should “bear the consequences of its infringement activities.” 

Julio Amador III, CEO of Amador Research Services, a consulting firm in the Philippines that provides policy analysis and strategic advice on ASEAN and Southeast Asian issues, said that the Philippines and Japan may be close to completing negotiations on the RAA, and that the “two plus two” meeting would be a good time to announce the agreement. 

However, the agreement would not take effect immediately as it must first be signed by the leaders of the two countries. 

A signal to Beijing

Kei Koga, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, pointed out in a video interview with VOA Mandarin that an RAA signed by Japan and Australia in January 2022 was not ratified until a year later. 

Nevertheless, he said that the RAA will send a signal to Beijing that Japan and the Philippines “will conduct more types of military collaboration and cooperation,” which can have a deterrent effect on China’s hegemonic behavior at sea. 

Kei emphasized that Japan’s constitution says its Self-Defense Forces can only defend their own country and cannot go abroad to fight. That limits the scale of military force that Japan can deploy in the South China Sea. 

Kobe University’s Kiba agreed that Japan’s military influence in the South China Sea will be limited since the Japanese Self-Defense Forces can only conduct multilateral and joint exercises with allies.  

“So, if the Philippines is attacked in the future, the United States may be the only ally that can provide assistance, because this is the form of alliance,” Kiba said. 
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