Vietnam is speeding up its vaccination program in an effort to loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions in major cities by the end of the month, the government said Monday.
 
Health workers administered vaccines throughout the night in the capital, Hanoi, which has been under lockdown since July.  
 
More than a million vaccine shots were given over the weekend in Hanoi, out of around 5.5 million administered there since vaccinations started in March, the Health Ministry said.
 
“We have to speed up the vaccination program so we can make a plan to reopen the city,” Hanoi mayor Chu Ngoc Anh said Sunday. More than half of the country’s 98 million population is also under lockdown.
 
About 80% of the city’s 5.7 million adults have received at least one shot, with authorities aiming for 100% by the end of this week.
 
However, the country’s overall vaccination rate remains low at about 28%, and only 4% have been fully vaccinated with both jabs.
 
Vietnam managed to keep its infection rate relatively low up until April this year, with only 35 deaths. Last year it was praised for keeping the virus under control, an accomplishment generally attributed to the discipline of being a single-party communist state with tight controls at all levels.
 
But vaccine shortages forced Vietnam to slow down its vaccination program in recent months, even as the delta variant of the virus infected over 600,000 people and killed more than 15,000 in just four months.
 
In Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s business hub and most hard-hit by the surge, over 95% of adults have received the first vaccine, but many who need to come in for the second dose aren’t able to get it due to low supplies.
 
Among measures to cope with the shortage, Vietnam’s health authority has allowed combinations of different two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to speed up the vaccination campaign. Experts say this tactic is likely safe and effective, but researchers are still gathering data to be sure.
 
Vietnam is currently using AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm, a Chinese-made vaccine.
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Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob will sign a cooperation deal with the main opposition bloc Monday aimed at ensuring the stability of his new government.Under the accord between Prime Minister Ismail and veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Ismail has agreed to a set of reforms including new laws to prevent party defections, limiting the prime minister’s term to 10 years, and lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.The agreement also ensures bipartisan agreement on every bill that is introduced in parliament, input from the opposition on a national recovery council, and an assurance that the opposition leader receives the same pay and privileges as a Cabinet minister.Ismail became Malaysia’s third prime minister in three years when he was appointed prime minister by King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah last month to succeed Muhyiddin Yassin. Muhyiddin resigned after conceding he had lost the majority of lawmakers. Ismail served as deputy prime minister under Muhyiddin.The king selected Muhyiddin as prime minister in March 2020 after then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s ruling coalition had collapsed a month earlier. But Muhyiddin was beset by constant challenges to his leadership within his fragile coalition and rising anger over his government’s poor response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The country of 32 million is suffering the highest rate of new daily COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in Southeast Asia, with 1.9 million total infections and 20,711 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Muhyiddin’s tenuous grip on power began unraveling when a group of lawmakers with the United Malays National Organization, the largest party in the coalition, withdrew their support. UMNO, once Malaysia’s long-serving ruling party dating back to the country’s independence in 1957, has a handful of politicians facing corruption charges, including former Prime Minister Najib Razak.Muhyiddin’s 17-month tenure as prime minister is the shortest in Malaysian history.(Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.)  
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Authorities in Shanghai and neighboring coastal regions canceled flights, and suspended schools, subways and trains as Typhoon Chanthu approached China after drenching Taiwan though causing little damage there. The storm, with winds of more than 170 kilometers per hour near its eye, had been downgraded from a super typhoon to a strong typhoon on Sunday evening and was expected to gradually weaken, Shanghai city authorities said in a post on their official WeChat account. But it was still expected to bring strong winds and heavy rain to coastal regions. The province of Zhejiang near Shanghai raised its emergency response to the highest level on Sunday, closing schools and suspending flights and rail services in some cities, the official Xinhua news service reported. Zhejiang also issued red alerts for flash floods in nine districts. Ningbo port, China’s second-biggest container transporting hub after Shanghai, had suspended operations since Sunday noon. The port just resumed from a weeks-long port congestion, following typhoon In-Fa in late-July and a COVID-19-related terminal closure in mid-August. In Shanghai, home to about 26 million people, all flights at the city’s larger Pudong International Airport were to be canceled from 11 a.m. local time (0300 GMT), while flights from the smaller Hongqiao airport in the west of the city were to be canceled from 3 p.m., the Shanghai government announced on WeChat. Port terminals in Shanghai regions suspended containers import and export services from Monday till further notice. The city also suspended subway services on some lines serving the city’s southern districts, and said parks, outdoor tourist attractions and playgrounds would be closed on Monday and Tuesday. Classes were also due to be suspended on Monday afternoon and Tuesday. Official forecasts called for rainfall of 250-280 millimeters in some areas of southeastern Jiangsu province, Shanghai and northeastern Zhejiang. The typhoon passed by Taiwan’s east coast over the weekend, disrupting transport and causing some power outages, but otherwise little damage.  
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North Korea has conducted its first missile test in about six months. The long-range cruise missile being tested could give Pyongyang another way to evade its neighbors’ missile defenses, say analysts.  The “newly-developed long-range cruise missiles” flew 1,500 kilometers over North Korean territory before successfully hitting their targets, North Korean state media reported Monday.  The reports did not say how many missiles were tested, but said the tests occurred Saturday and Sunday. Pictures posted in North Korean state media showed one of the cruise missiles being fired from a five-canister, road-mobile launcher that appeared to be parked on a highway.  Several analysts said the missile appeared visually similar to the U.S. Tomahawk, a nuclear-capable cruise missile with a range of about 1,600 kilometers.  The cruise missile test appears to be less provocative than a long-range or intercontinental ballistic missile launch, which would involve technology that could target the mainland United States. But the launch will still serve as a test for U.S. President Joe Biden, who has said he is open to both diplomacy and additional economic pressure on North Korea. Designed to evade U.S. and South Korean officials, who usually detect and report North Korean missile tests shortly after they occur, did not publish statements until after the North Korean state media announcement.  In a statement, the U.S. military said it was aware of the reported launches and is monitoring and consulting closely with its allies and partners. “This activity highlights DPRK’s continuing focus on developing its military program and the threats that poses to its neighbors and the international community,” the statement read.  In a statement to VOA, South Korea’s military confirmed the launch, saying it is conducting a “detailed analysis in close coordination with South Korean and U.S. intelligence agencies.” It is North Korea’s first known missile launch since March, when it also appeared to test cruise missile technology. That test was only confirmed by U.S. officials after the first reports of the test appeared in The Washington Post.North Korea Conducts First Launch of 2021 Test is routine, US officials insist Cruise missiles are harder to detect than the ballistic missiles typically launched by North Korea, since they fly at a relatively low altitude and can be controlled in-flight. “This is another system that is designed to fly under missile defense radars or around them,” Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear nonproliferation with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said on Twitter. Nuclear-capable? North Korean state media referred to the cruise missiles as “strategic,” implying a nuclear capability. Some defense experts are not sure whether that statement reflects current or eventual capabilities. “While you could say the missile will be nuclear capable, there is no known North Korean warhead for it yet,” said Melissa Hanham, an affiliate with the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. Hanham stressed that she has not yet conducted analysis to estimate the size of the missile, but it does not appear North Korea has a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on it.  “They are certainly claiming to have a new cruise missile with a range and look similar to the U.S. Tomahawk,” Hanham said.  A range of 1,500 kilometers would mean that the new North Korean cruise missiles could reach all of South Korea and most of Japan. Latest test The missile represents another lethal component in North Korea’s missile arsenal, which has significantly expanded since 2019, when Pyongyang resumed major weapons tests.  Since then, North Korea appears to have test-fired at least five types of new missiles — mostly short-range ballistic missiles also designed to evade its neighbor’s defenses.  North Korea has not conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile or nuclear test since 2017, though Pyongyang has at times hinted it may do so. In January 2020, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced he no longer felt bound by his self-imposed moratorium on long-range ballistic missile and nuclear tests.  That moratorium was put in place during the diplomacy between Kim and former U.S. President Donald Trump.  Trump repeatedly downplayed North Korea’s short-range launches. Biden, too, in March, shrugged off North Korea’s cruise missile test, calling it “business as usual.”  Biden has not yet responded to the North’s latest test.  Under United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea is prohibited from any ballistic missile activity. Although those resolutions do not mention cruise missile technology, some analysts say the latest tests could still receive a tough U.S. response, given the missiles’ possible nuclear capability.  “If that is the case, then the test is deserving of an international effort to strengthen sanctions,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.  Stalled talks Negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea broke down in 2019 over disagreements on how to pace sanctions relief with steps to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program.  The Biden administration has repeatedly said it is open to resuming talks with North Korea, but for now North Korea’s focus appears elsewhere. For the past year and a half, North Korea has imposed a strict pandemic lockdown, sealing its borders, cutting imports, and restricting domestic travel. 
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North Korea carried out successful tests of a new long-range cruise missile over the weekend, its state media, KCNA, said on Monday, amid a protracted standoff with the United States over denuclearization.The missiles flew 1,500 km (930 miles) before hitting their targets and falling into the country’s territorial waters during the tests held on Saturday and Sunday, KCNA said.It was seen as the North’s first missile launch after it tested a new tactical short-range ballistic missile in March. North Korea also conducted a cruise missile test just hours after U.S. President Joe Biden took office in late January.The latest test highlighted steady progress in Pyongyang’s weapons program amid gridlock over talks aimed at dismantling the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in return for U.S. sanctions relief. The talks have stalled since 2019.Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers’ Party’s official newspaper, ran photos of the new long-range cruise missile flying and being fired from a launcher.North Korea tested a “newly developed long-range cruise missile,” according to its Rodong Sinmun newspaper. Tests allegedly happened Saturday and Sunday, but we never heard about them from US or South Korean authorities. pic.twitter.com/puPaPLegtY— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) September 12, 2021The missile is a strategic weapon that has been developed over the past two years and is a key element of a five-year plan outlined in January to advance defense science and arsenals, KCNA said.The test provides “strategic significance of possessing another effective deterrence means for more reliably guaranteeing the security of our state and strongly containing the military maneuvers of the hostile forces,” KCNA said.”In this course, detailed tests of missile parts, scores of engine ground thrust tests, various flight tests, control and guidance tests, warhead power tests etc. were conducted with success,” KCNA added.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not appear to have attended the test, with KCNA saying Pak Jong Chon, a member of the Workers’ Party’s powerful politburo and a secretary of its central committee, oversaw it.The reclusive North has long accused the United States and South Korea of a “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang.The unveiling of the test came just a day before chief nuclear negotiators from the United States, South Korea and Japan meet in Tokyo to explore ways to break the standoff with North Korea.China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, is also scheduled to visit Seoul on Tuesday for talks with his counterpart, Chung Eui-yong.Biden’s administration has said it is open to diplomacy to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization but has shown no willingness to ease sanctions.Sung Kim, the U.S. envoy for North Korea, said in August in Seoul that he was ready to meet with North Korean officials “anywhere, at any time.”A reactivation of inter-Korean hotlines in July raised hopes for a restart of the negotiations, but the North stopped answering calls as annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises began last month, which Pyongyang had warned could trigger a security crisis.
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The Philippines will get more aid and investment from China, Chinese officials say, as analysts believe assistance given so far has failed to meet Filipinos’ expectations and Beijing doesn’t want the Southeast Asian country to depend too much on the United States, China’s rival.“China is willing to work with the Philippines to implement more cooperation projects and allow the people in both countries to benefit more from bilateral cooperation,” the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry said in an August 27 statement issued after a tele-summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.According to the statement, Xi added that his country’s cooperation with the Philippines would “make more contributions to regional peace and prosperity.”  After Duterte and Xi met in Beijing in 2016, auguring a new Sino-Philippine friendship, China pledged $24 billion in aid that was expected to speed infrastructure renewal work in the relatively poor Southeast Asian country. China was already known for building infrastructure across Eurasia as a way to open trade routes.China has offered several billion dollars’ worth of investment in Philippine railways among other projects, helped the country explore for undersea oil, sent COVID-19 vaccines and donated arms to fight Muslim rebels who periodically attack government positions in the archipelago’s southernmost islands.Many Filipinos, though, believe this support has fallen short of Beijing’s original pledge, especially against the backdrop of a festering South China Sea maritime sovereignty dispute that exploded in March when 220 Chinese fishing vessels moored at a contested islet, analysts in Manila say.Chinese ‘Flotilla’ in Contested Waters Further Sours Once-Upbeat RelationsManila concerned over presence of 220 finishing boats near a reef in the Spratly Islands, demands their removal“It’s kind of like maybe the Chinese side really wanting to make sure that the bilateral relations will remain stable and maintain the current momentum going forward – avoid disruptions,” said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila.Xi discussed aid with Duterte the tele-summit and pledged on the call to help further with infrastructure projects and COVID-19 relief.Duterte said in a statement that day he looks forward to China’s “continued support for landmark projects,” including flood control work, a railway north of Manila and two key bridges.Some earlier Chinese-funded projects are still in the pipeline or may be stalled by Philippine bureaucracy, Rabena said.Aid as pledged in 2016 was seen then as part of China’s bid for friendship with the Philippines, a historic U.S. ally. Duterte pushed back against Washington in the early part of his six-year presidential term as he pursued a multicountry foreign policy but pivoted back this year by lifting an order to cancel the U.S.-Philippine Visiting Forces Agreement of 1999.Philippines Says US Visiting Forces Agreement to Remain in EffectDuterte retracts termination letter sent last yearDuterte’s renewed support for that agreement probably worries China, Rabena said.“You could say that the relationship between the two countries[China and the Philippines] [is] not as quiet and rosy as they were in the past five years,” said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City.U.S. forces regularly train their Philippine counterparts to fight in the South China Sea, if needed, and the Visiting Forces Agreement gives U.S. troops easy access to the Philippines.Beijing claims about 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, overlapping waters the Philippines and four other governments also claim.Chinese officials point to documents dating back more than 1,000 years as support for their maritime claim. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam cite a United Nations convention to back their own. Taiwan claims most of the sea as well. Claimant governments prize the sea for fisheries, fossil fuel reserves and marine shipping lanes.Most Filipinos questioned Duterte’s overtures to China that began in 2016, according to a poll two years later by the Quezon City-based research organization Social Weather Stations.“Assuming Beijing even follows through on any of its supposed aid pledges, the Filipino public and military are strongly pro-American and would most likely resent Xi Jinping trying to buy them off,” said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York.Duterte, who must step down in mid-2022 due to term limits, wants China to keep its aid pledges partly to give him the “political capital” to endorse a successor in next year’s election, Rabena said. 
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The human rights records of more than 40 countries will come under scrutiny by the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council during its upcoming four-week session.  
The session promises to be extremely busy.  Nearly 90 reports on a wide range of thematic issues will be presented.  They include torture, enforced disappearances, the right to development, slavery, the rights of people of African descent and racism. As in previous years, the council’s laser-lens focus on the way governments treat their people is expected to garner a lot of attention.  Reported abuses, some amounting to crimes against humanity, will be examined in countries such as Myanmar, Belarus, Syria, Eritrea, Burundi, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet will present an oral update on the situation in Afghanistan Monday as a follow-up to the council’s August 24 special session on that country. The European Union, Mexico and Britain along with human rights activists have criticized the resolution that was adopted for failing to establish a robust independent mechanism to monitor violations by the Taliban. Council President Fiji Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan says discussion on Afghanistan has not ended with the special session. “And, really, it is a matter for states to decide whether they want to take the outcome of the special session further and achieve another result,” she said. “But I do want to note that the Security Council on the 30th of August adopted a resolution on safe passage.  It addressed human rights concerns particularly as it relates to women and children.”   Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth says he is dismayed at the council’s reluctance to take on powerful countries such as Russia and China.  He says he fears the Kremlin will not be held to account for its unprecedented crackdown on opposition parties in advance of this month’s parliamentary elections. “Ideally, we would like to have a resolution.  At minimum, there should be a joint statement.  But, again, this is a situation that just because a government is relatively powerful, should not mean that it escapes scrutiny.  And this is again a bit of a test of the council’s credibility,”  he said.Roth says the same dynamics are playing out regarding China’s abusive treatment of more than a million Uyghurs in internment camps in Xinjiang province. “China has always escaped formal scrutiny by the council.  There has never been a resolution on China.  It is time to end that, given the severity and the atrocities, the crimes against humanity being committed in Xinjiang,”  he said.China maintains the Uyghurs are being held in reeducation camps and that the vocational training they are receiving is necessary to counter terrorism and alleviate poverty.   Roth is calling on Bachelet to present a report describing the inhumane conditions under which the Uyghurs are being incarcerated and to call for the Chinese government to be held accountable. 
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Some of Australia’s biggest media companies have lost a legal battle with a former youth detainee over allegedly defamatory comments posted about him on their Facebook pages. The high court has found the media groups are legally responsible as “publishers” for third parties’ comments on their Facebook pages.Dylan Voller was held in youth detention in Australia’s Northern Territory.  His treatment  was the focus of a 2016 television documentary, which led to a wide-ranging inquiry into the mistreatment of inmates.  Images of him shackled to a chair wearing a spit hood sparked outrage. They also prompted some Facebook users to make allegedly defamatory remarks about him on the media companies’ pages online.As a result, Voller wants to sue several Australian media companies.The case has been held up by a separate legal dispute over whether the outlets were the publishers of users’ comments.The High Court, Australia’s highest court, Wednesday found they were because in setting up a public Facebook page and posting content, the media groups had allowed and encouraged comments from the platform’s users.The judges said it did not matter that the companies deleted the messages after becoming aware of them.A spokesperson for Australia’s Nine Network, which is one of the companies involved, said, “we are obviously disappointed with the outcome as it will have ramifications for what we can post on social media in the future.” Voller’s lawyer, Peter O’Brien, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Voller is relieved the long legal fight, or “stoush,” in Australian parlance, is over.“I spoke to Dylan this morning.  He is obviously elated at the decision.  It has been a long legal stoush.  People who might be vulnerable to social media mob attacks – they  are protected.”The High Court decision clears the way for Voller to continue his legal action against high-profile newspapers – The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian – and others, including broadcaster Sky News.The defamation case will continue later in the New South Wales state Supreme Court.  A trial there will decide whether the Facebook comments did, in fact, defame the former youth detention inmate. 
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China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting Cambodia, where’s he expected to meet with Prime Minister Hun Sen and other officials to discuss COVID-19 and other regional issues.Cambodia’s foreign ministry said Wang’s meetings on Sunday and Monday would include discussions of trade and security as well.Wrapping up a visit to neighboring Vietnam on Saturday, Wang said China planned to donate 3 million vaccine doses to that country, which is under a lockdown to contain a COVID-19 surge.China is Cambodia’s biggest investor and closest political partner. Beijing’s support allows Cambodia to disregard Western concerns about its poor record in human and political rights, and in turn Cambodia generally supports Beijing’s geopolitical positions on issues such as its territorial claims in the South China Sea.In recent months, the United States has expressed concern about their ties and urged Cambodia’s leaders to maintain an independent and balanced foreign policy that would be in its people’s best interests.The concerns partly have focused on China’s construction of new facilities at Ream Naval Base in Cambodia and the potential for its military to have future basing rights there.Ream faces the Gulf of Thailand that lies adjacent to the South China Sea, and holding basing rights in Cambodia would extend Beijing’s strategic military profile considerably. 
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Japan’s defense ministry said on Sunday that a submarine believed to be from China was spotted in waters near its southern islands, as maritime tensions persist in the Pacific.Japan’s navy on Friday morning identified a submerged vessel sailing northwest just outside territorial waters near Amami Oshima island, part of Kagoshima prefecture, the ministry said in a statement. A Chinese destroyer was also spotted in the vicinity.Tokyo has complained of numerous intrusions by Chinese vessels of its territorial waters and near disputed islands in recent years. China has often reacted angrily to U.S. ships sailing through disputed areas of the South China Sea in what Washington calls displays of freedom of navigation.Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, visiting Vietnam during a Southeast Asia trip, said those two countries should refrain from unilateral actions regarding the South China Sea that could complicate and magnify disputes.Saturday’s announcement said Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force identified the vessels in a contiguous zone, which is outside territorial waters where vessels are required to identify themselves. Still, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi instructed his staff “gather information and maintain vigilant surveillance with a sense of urgency,” the statement said.Officials at the Chinese Embassy could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.The submarine continued underwater westward in the ocean near Yokoate Island, the ministry said. 
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Myanmar’s COVID-19 battle is facing further complications amid the fallout from February’s military coup.
 
This week, the opposition National Unity Government declared a “defensive war” against the ruling junta government. Next week, the United Nations will hold its 76th General Assembly, and will decide whether the junta or the civilian government will be recognized for a U.N seat.
 
The country is still fighting a third COVID-19 wave at a time of increasing political tensions. According to World Health Organization data, more than 400,000 people have been infected with COVID-19 in Myanmar, with more than 16,000 dead  
 
There are concerns, though, that those figures are much higher.
 
Sasa, a medical doctor from Chin State and the NUG’s minister of international cooperation who only goes by one name, told VOA thousands more may have died than officially recorded.
 
“We are calculating the number from 40,000 to 400,000 could have died. … It’s impossible for us to understand the level of death. Half the population, 35 to 37 million in Myanmar could be infected by COVID-19 … [it is] a real scale of things,” he told VOA via video call.  
 
“So many people died, we cannot even, and there is no way for us to, count the deaths. The line on the oxygen, and the line to the cemetery, those are the … lines for queue in the last few months,” he added.FILE – This screengrab taken from a broadcast by Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV) in Myanmar, April 1, 2021 show footage from March of Buddhist monks waiting to be inoculated with a COVID vaccine in Naypyidaw.Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, said in July that that half of Myanmar’s 54 million population could quickly be infected with the virus.
 
Dr. Sasa, who is on the run and wanted by the military, blames the junta for turning plans to vaccinate the population “upside-down.”
 
“If there was no military coup in Myanmar, at least 30% of our population would have been vaccinated already. I was a part of the leadership in February, I was there in Naypyitaw [Myanmar’s capital] … our plan was to get vaccinations, at least 30 million dosages of Indian [vaccines].  We have paid the money for that, we have ordered for that, and starting to vaccinate,” he added.  
 
Background, medical workers targeted
 
The country has been in crisis since the coup. A mass uprising opposed the takeover, with thousands protesting in the streets. The Civil Disobedience Movement, a nationwide campaign that has seen Myanmar’s essential workers go on strike, aiming to stifle the military-controlled economy, has spearheaded the demonstrations.
 
Medical workers led the anti-military campaign, but that has not prevented the military from targeting the leaders. According to the monitoring group Insecurity Insight, 252 incidents have been reported against medical personnel and facilities in Myanmar, with at least 25 killed.
 Vaccinations
 
Myanmar’s only has 3% of the population fully vaccinated, even though the junta has received millions of donated vaccine doses from India, China and Russia. Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing aims to vaccinate 50 million of the total population by the end of the year.Junta Faces Difficulties on Myanmar Vaccination ProgramMyanmar’s coup leader is aiming for 50% of country’s population to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of this yearSasa said many people distrust the military to administer the vaccines.
 
“The people of Myanmar will not go to them to get a vaccination,” he said.
 
He added that the NUG cabinet is working with international organizations about opening vaccination clinics in Myanmar. The Irrawaddy, a Myanmar news site, reported 6 million vaccine doses are on the way from the COVAX global vaccine-sharing initiative.
 
Sasa said getting people safely vaccinated is easier said than done.
 
“The question is how do we do the vaccination rollout program. We have all the programs, strategies in place, tasked with all these global partners, but the most concern is about security. We are asking simply military junta to stop attacking hospitals, medical facilities and medical personnel. … Doctors and nurses are the key to deliver the vaccinations for the people,” he said.  
 Myanmar emergency
 
An assistant surgeon in a medical center in Kayin state who did not want her name used, said Myanmar is going through a health emergency, with a shortage of hospital beds as a common issue.FILE – Volunteers in protective suits prepare to cremate the body of a monk suspected of having died from COVID-19, at a crematorium in the Taungoo district in Myanmar’s Bago region, some 220 km from Yangon, Aug. 6, 2021.“There are so many people treating COVID-19 infection at home or some [medical] centers. Some patients were lost due to an oxygen shortage. It’s too sorry to say. According to one of my patients, the hospital didn’t let them in and ordered them to go back home although the patient is severely ill and dyspneic,” he told VOA, using a medical term for difficulty breathing.
 
The surgeon added that medical workers who had joined the CDM movement are too afraid to return to hospitals to assist with patients.
 
“Myanmar is in emergency, and we need urgent help from the world,” the doctor added.
 
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China is criticizing a process called the “Uyghur Tribunal,” a quasi-judicial effort by opponents of the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities designed to publicize evidence of alleged human rights abuses. At a September 9 news conference in Beijing, China’s FILE – Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes a question at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020.“It has nothing to do with law, justice or truth, and is just another farce staged to smear and attack Xinjiang,” Zhao told the press, calling the tribunal members clowns.  The “tribunal” heard from 38 witnesses in its first round of hearings in June in Church House, London. That event focused on alleged rights abuses in China’s northwest region of Xinjiang. The second set of hearings is scheduled from September 10 to 13, according to the organizers.  Led by Sir Geoffrey Nice, a prominent lawyer and expert in international criminal law, the nine “jurors” include academics, medical and business practitioners, diplomats and lawyers, according to Nick Vetch, vice chair of the tribunal.  A six-member team of lawyers is helping to collect and present evidence. They are British, French, German, Iranian and Maltese nationals. By year’s end, the jurors plan to issue a “verdict” regarding China’s actions in Xinjiang. “[It’s] not possible for the allegations made against the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to be considered in a formal court such as the International Court of Justice, and it has not been dealt with by states, and therefore it is left to the citizens to seek and answer these questions of such gravity,” Vetch told VOA.  Some countries such as the U.S. as well as rights organizations like Amnesty International accuse China of genocide and crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.  FILE – Chair of the panel Geoffrey Nice gives the opening address on the first day of hearings at the “Uyghur Tribunal”, a panel of UK-based lawyers and rights experts investigating alleged abuses against Uyghurs in China’s  Xinjiang region, in London, June 4, 2021.Among other things, they point to arbitrary detentions of an estimated 1 million people and to reports of forced labor and involuntary sterilization.    China denies abusing Uyghurs, saying they are being given vocational training and language skills. Beijing says people in Xinjiang are free to choose their work.  In December 2020, the FILE – Police officers stand at the outer entrance of the Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng in western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 23, 2021.According to Hamid Sabi, the head of the six-member team of lawyers, the body was set up at the request of Dolkun Isa, WUC president.  China was invited on numerous occasions to take part in the process but organizers received no response.  “We do not present a case for or against China,” Sabi told VOA. “The tribunal members and the counsel team are the same as the June hearing.”   Foreign Ministry’s Zhao called WUC a separatist organization and Isa a terrorist listed by the Chinese government. “These so-called ‘chair’, ‘experts’ and ‘witnesses’ have deplorable track records and are habitual liars,” Zhao charged, “who have become a laughingstock in the international community long time ago.”   Isa, a witness during the first round, confirmed to VOA Mandarin that the tribunal had been established following his request but maintained that it is independent.  “The tribunal acts wholly independently, although the WUC closely supports the hearings by arranging Uyghur witnesses and translation, among other things,” Isa said.  Teng Biao, a Chinese human right lawyer in the U.S. and an expert witness at the tribunal’s second hearings, said the Chinese Communist Party always tries to discredit the witnesses and survivors to cover up truth. The Uyghur Tribunal, he said, “plays a very significant role to at least disclose the truth and the nature of the crime.”  
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Myanmar troops killed several members of a local “defense force” in a day of clashes, the junta said Friday, with local residents and media reporting at least 10 dead.The country has been in turmoil since a February coup and a military crackdown on dissent that has killed more than 1,000 people, according to a local monitoring group.In some areas, locals — often using hunting rifles or homemade weapons — have formed “defense forces” to fight back.Junta troops were attacked with “small arms and homemade guns” as they entered Myin Thar village in the western Magway region on Thursday, army spokesman Zaw Min Tun told state-backed People Media.The soldiers, who were searching for members of a local “Peoples’ Defense Force” had killed a number of fighters, he said, without giving an exact figure, adding they had seized 23 guns. “More than 10 people from my village were shot and killed,” one Myin Thar resident said on condition of anonymity.Soldiers set fire to several houses after the clash, they said. A resident of neighboring Thar Lin village said locals fled at the sounds of the fighting and were now sheltering in a local monastery or in the jungle.Local media reported between 10 and 15 locals had been killed.Clashes involving civilian militias and the military have largely been restricted to rural areas but in June at least six people died in a gun battle in the country’s second city of Mandalay.On Tuesday around a dozen military-owned communications towers were destroyed, the same day a shadow government working to reverse the coup called for a “people’s defensive war against the junta.”The “National Unity Government” which claims to be the country’s legitimate government, is made up of dissident lawmakers in hiding or exile, many of them from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party.The junta has defended its power grab by alleging massive fraud during elections in late 2020 which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won by a landslide.
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China last month inaugurated a new trade route via ship, road and rail running through Myanmar in keeping with Beijing’s dogged building spree across the Southeast Asian country to reach the Indian Ocean and points west.Analysts say it is one more strand in the ever-expanding web of transportation channels pulling China and Southeast Asia closer under the banner of Beijing’s sprawling Belt and Road Initiative while boosting China’s sway across the region.Whether the new route actually pays off, they add, may hinge on whether and when new rail lines are laid across Myanmar, a challenge made tougher by the violent turmoil the country has tipped into since its Feb. 1 coup.Ties that bindThe Chinese Embassy in Myanmar announced the opening of the route after a successful test run with a post to its Facebook page.The trip started out by ship from Singapore to Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub, where it continued by road to the country’s border with China at Chinshwehaw, on the border with China’s Yunnan province. The cargo then finished the last leg of the journey over a new rail line from the border to Chengdu, the capital of China’s central Sichuan province.The embassy called it a new route for Beijing to the Indian Ocean and “an important breakthrough in strengthening China-Myanmar trade relations.”Bryan Tse, Myanmar analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, told VOA the project, “as with many of similar nature in Southeast Asia, will help strengthen trade ties between China and the region, and thus increase Chinese influence there.”Li Mingjiang, a China policy expert at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the new train tracks in China upgrade a trade route that has existed for years and will complement the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a cornerstone of Beijing’s BRI.The corridor already features twin oil and gas pipelines bisecting Myanmar from the Bay of Bengal in the west to its border with China in the east, passing through Mandalay along the way. A deep-water port where the pipelines hit the coast is under construction. China’s plans also envision a high-speed rail line and expressway tracing the same path as the pipes, with an offshoot running south from Mandalay to Yangon, on the Andaman Sea.Critically for Beijing, the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea both open onto the Indian Ocean. That gives China’s oil and gas imports from the Middle East an alternative to passing through the chokepoint of the Malacca Strait near Singapore, a potential liability in the event of a conflict.Off the railsWith the rail line from the China-Myanmar border to Chengdu now up and running, China says the new trade route through Myanmar via Yangon will shave weeks off the time it takes to move goods between the Indian Ocean and Sichuan.Li, though, said the overland stretch through Myanmar by road makes for a tight bottleneck and will probably prove impractical for anything but specialty, high-value goods.“It’s too slow, and also in terms of volume it’s quite limited, and that’s going to be a major constraint,” he said.According to the analyst, the only real fix is for China to convince Myanmar to start laying new rail lines across Myanmar itself.“That’s the only way, but for a long time Myanmar has been not very supportive of such ideas. Even if Myanmar eventually agrees to this proposal, it will take time to build,” Li said, a few years at least.Until then, he added, the volume of goods China can move over the new trade route through Yangon will also do little to address Beijing’s “Malacca dilemma.”Facing loud opposition from locals along the proposed path of the tracks who fear losing their land for little or no compensation, Myanmar has only reluctantly agreed to China’s requests for feasibility studies.Tse said concerns over feasibility and cost have added to the delays.“Many joint projects have thus far suffered the same fate, and there are not many reasons to expect this to change for the better given the significantly poorer geopolitical and macroeconomic policy environment the [Myanmar] junta now finds itself in,” he said.Already hobbled by the pandemic, Myanmar’s economy has taken another big hit since the military toppled the country’s democratically elected government in February. Fitch Solutions, an international ratings agency, expects Myanmar’s economy to contract at least 20% this year.Tse said the new trade route as it stands could give the economy a boost, but not enough to “move the needle.”Trading favorsKhin Khin Kyaw Kyee, who follows China-Myanmar relations at Myanmar’s Institute for Strategy and Policy, a local think tank, expects even less from the new route.A handful of officials and well-connected companies may well cash in on logistics fees, she said, “but in terms of the ordinary … people and Myanmar as a country, I’m not sure whether we will be getting a lot of benefits.”What ordinary people need at least as much as infrastructure upgrades, she said, were better bilateral trade policies to help even the playing field with China and to formalize the large volume of informal cross-border trade now exposed to the whims of local officials.Khin Khin Kyaw Kyee added that the new trade route also has to contend with the uptick in fighting the coup has sparked between the military and armed rebel groups vying for territory on Myanmar’s fringes, some of them near the very stretch of the China-Myanmar border the route crosses.Since the coup, rights groups say Myanmar’s security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians and arrested thousands more in their bid to put down all forms of resistance to the junta, from protests to neighborhood militias and a civil disobedience movement. The U.S. and other Western countries have responded with a series of sanctions targeting senior military officials and their vast business interests.China and Russia, though, both major arms suppliers to Myanmar, have helped shield the junta from more coordinated international pressure at the United Nations.By embracing the new trade route, Khin Khin Kyaw Kyee said, the junta sees one more opportunity to keep China on its side.“At this point what they are all thinking is to woo China, to please China, so that they will get more diplomatic protection in the international community,” she said. 
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Dozens of local community politicians in Hong Kong swore a newly required loyalty oath to China on Friday after hundreds of their colleagues quit in protest as authorities try to purge the city of “unpatriotic” elements.District councils are the only political office in Hong Kong where all seats are directly elected by residents.They deal with bread-and-butter local issues like bus routes, trash collection and playgrounds. But they have also become a symbol of residents’ urge for a greater say in how their city is run.In late 2019, towards the end of months of huge democracy protests, opposition candidates critical of China’s rule won a landslide, hammering pro-government candidates.China has since responded with a crackdown on dissent as well as an overhaul of the city’s political system that reduces the number of directly elected officials and vets politicians for their perceived patriotism.On Friday, the first 24 councilors took the oath in a closed-door ceremony, according to the government.Similar ceremonies have been held for other sectors, including civil servants, government officials and lawmakers.However, those who swear allegiance can still be disqualified.Under the new rules imposed by Beijing earlier this year, a national security committee can disqualify anyone deemed an “anti-China” element or disloyal.Subversion charges”If we have doubts on certain councilors’ oath-taking and could not completely trust whether they have pledged loyalty and allegiance, we will give them the opportunity to explain… If their oaths are invalid in the end, they will be disqualified,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam said earlier this week.Some 180 district councilors are expected to take oaths in the coming weeks and those who refuse to attend will lose their seats.However, a majority of the elected district councilors have simply quit rather than adhere to the vetting process.So far a total of 260 — more than half of the 452 elected members — have resigned.”It (oath-taking) has become the regime’s tool to keep you on a leash,” former district councilor Debbie Chan, who resigned in July, told AFP.”They want to eliminate the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong.”Since the 2019 protests, China has imposed a national security law that has criminalized much dissent and began remolding Hong Kong in its own authoritarian image.Several district councilors are among the more than 60 people who have been charged with national security crimes, the vast majority for their political views.In the latest prosecution, three leading members of the group behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen vigils appeared in court on Friday.A day earlier, police raided a museum they ran dedicated to the victims of Beijing’s deadly 1989 crackdown.The three leaders were hit with a subversion charge after they refused to cooperate with a national security investigation.Writing on Facebook before her court appearance, barrister Chow Hang-tung, one of those charged, struck a defiant tone. She was denied bail in Friday’s court appearance.”If they have written the script to eliminate our freedom, then obedience and cooperation will only help them reach their goal quicker and easier,” she wrote.In court, she told the judge the charges were “absurd.”National security crimes carry up to life in prison and the majority are denied bail until trial. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke for 90 minutes in their first talks in seven months on Thursday, discussing the need to avoid letting competition between the world’s two largest economies veer into conflict.The U.S. side said the “proof will be in the pudding” as to whether the stalemate can be broken with relations between the superpowers languishing at their lowest point in decades.A White House statement said Biden and Xi had “a broad, strategic discussion,” including areas where interests and values converge and diverge. The conversation focused on economic issues, climate change and COIVD-19, a senior U.S. official told reporters.”President Biden underscored the United States’ enduring interest in peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and the world and the two leaders discussed the responsibility of both nations to ensure competition does not veer into conflict,” the statement said.Occasional high-level meetings since Xi and Biden’s first call in February have yielded scant progress on a slew of issues, from human rights to transparency over the origins of COVID-19.During the ensuing months, the two sides have lashed out at each other almost constantly, often resorting to vitriolic public attacks, slapping sanctions on each other’s officials and criticizing the other for not upholding their international obligations.Chinese state media said Xi had told Biden that U.S. policy on China imposes “serious difficulties” on relations, but added that both sides agreed to maintain frequent contact and to ask working-level teams to increase communications.”China and the United States should … show strategic courage and insight, and political boldness, and push Sino-U.S. relations back to the right track of stable development as soon as possible,” the state media report said, citing Xi.Asian currencies and share markets strengthened on Friday, as investors speculated that the call could lead to some thaw in relations between the two most important trading partners for economies in the region.’Proof will be in the pudding’The Biden administration, preoccupied by a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, has signaled that ending America’s longest war will give U.S. political and military leaders the space to focus on more pressing threats stemming from China’s rapid rise.But Beijing has been quick to seize on the U.S. failure in Afghanistan to try to portray the United States as a fickle partner and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month that Washington should not expect China’s cooperation on that or other issues if it was also trying to “contain and suppress” China.The senior U.S. administration official told reporters before the call that Washington had been disappointed that Chinese officials appeared only willing to read talking points during recent high-level talks, and that the U.S. side saw the leaders’ call as a test of whether direct engagement with Xi could end what has become a stalemate in ties.”This is about seeing if there is an ability to engage more substantively than we’ve been able to … the proof will be in the pudding,” the official said following the call, describing the tone as candid but respectful.But the official also acknowledged that the United States’ ability to change China’s behavior may be limited, and that Washington must largely focus on shoring up the U.S. competitiveness and rallying partners and allies.Successive U.S. administrations have complained that Beijing has sought to use endless dialogue as a delaying tactic and frustration with this tactic ultimately led to Washington ending an annualized U.S.-China dialogue mechanism.Even so, the official said Biden had not planned to raise the prospect of U.S. retaliatory action or “costs” if China refused to cooperate on a range of issues, including on COVID-19 origin investigations. Beijing denies the U.S. accusation that it hasn’t cooperated with investigations into the source of the pandemic.The U.S. official said it would “take time” and a “training period” for the Biden administration to convince Chinese leaders – who are themselves preparing domestically for an important Communist Party congress next year – that Beijing’s stance would not pay dividends.”We also think that essentially Beijing’s actions are quieter than their words,” the official said. “Their responses to our actions have actually been largely symbolic and frankly their hard-line rhetoric isn’t really working.”
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Myanmar’s military regime and the democratically elected government it toppled in February are likely headed for a showdown later this month at the United Nations General Assembly over which group may represent the country, with the fate of billions in foreign reserves potentially hanging in the balance.The junta and the so-called National Unity Government — representing ousted lawmakers, ethnic minority groups and a grassroots civil disobedience movement in Myanmar — are backing different men to fill Myanmar’s top seat at the U.N. They are expected to submit competing credentials when the U.N. General Assembly convenes its next regular session in New York starting Sept. 14.“So, I think there will be a clash for who will be the representative of the U.N.,” said Ye Myo Hein, the head of Myanmar’s Tagaung Institute think tank and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.Two’s a crowdThe NUG is backing Kyaw Moe Tun, who was serving as Myanmar’s U.N. ambassador before the Feb. 1 coup and officially still fills the post; he denounced the coup in an emotional speech at the U.N. on Feb. 26 and threw his support behind the ousted government. The junta soon disowned Kyaw Moe Tun and later told the U.N. it was replacing him with Aung Thurein, a 26-year veteran of the military.The final decision, though, rests with the 193 countries of the General Assembly.The process begins with the U.N.’s nine-member Credentials Committee, which convenes at the start of every regular General Assembly session to vet the application of each country’s proposed ambassador and passes its recommendations on to the full assembly. The General Assembly choses the committee members anew each year, though in practice China, Russia and the U.S. always serve.While the U.S. and other Western countries have condemned the Myanmar coup, China and Russia have shown tacit support for the military.Experts say the committee has four options. Besides recommending the proffered credentials of one candidate or the other, it could defer an explicit decision to back either application — which would leave Kyaw Moe Tun in the post by default but deny the NUG the U.N.’s stamp of approval — or recommend leaving Myanmar’s seat empty.The General Assembly usually accepts the committee’s recommendations without a vote, but any member state can force one by raising a challenge.With the NUG and junta digging in, “there is a chance that it will blow up into a major issue and that will end up in a vote by the General Assembly,” said Catherine Renshaw, a professor at Western Sydney University’s School of Law whose research focuses on democracy in Southeast Asia, and in particular Myanmar.Take a seatAnalysts say a clear decision by the committee and assembly to accept the credentials turned in by either the junta or the NUG would go far in conferring international legitimacy on either side as Myanmar’s true government, at a time when both are competing for physical control of the country.Rights groups claim the junta has killed more than 1,000 civilians and arrested thousands more in a bid to crush protests and a stubborn civil disobedience movement attempting to disrupt the day-to-day work of governing. Armed rebel groups backing the opposition are fighting the military for territory along the borders, while neighborhood militias have sprung up across the country to resist military control. The NUG is trying the pull the disparate elements together and claims to be running a shadow government while in hiding to evade arrests.If either the junta or the NUG wins the U.N. ambassador’s seat outright, it stands a good chance of filling Myanmar’s seats on other U.N. bodies as well, said Christopher Sidoti, an international human rights lawyer in Australia who served on a U.N. fact-finding mission on Myanmar from 2017-19.Faced with competing credentials from the junta and NUG earlier this year, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, International Labor Organization and Human Rights Council each chose to seat no one from Myanmar.“In all three of those cases those three bodies decided to defer to the General Assembly’s credentialing process and decided not to exercise their own powers in making decisions themselves as to who represented Myanmar in those forums. So there is a clear, very strong influence … and the expectation would be that whoever represents Myanmar in the General Assembly would represent Myanmar in other U.N. bodies,” Sidoti said.The U.N.’s decision is also likely to influence which competing government other states deal with one-on-one, the analysts added.In the bankRenshaw said a clear decision by the assembly on who represents Myanmar at the U.N. could also clear the winning side’s way to the billions of dollars in sovereign cash reserves Myanmar holds overseas.Within days of the Feb. 1 coup, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order freezing the $1 billion the Central Bank of Myanmar holds in foreign reserves at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to keep it out of the junta’s hands.“But they … can’t do that forever, and if there was recognition of the NUG then the argument is that they could release those funds to the appropriate representative of the NUG. That also would be a very big deal,” said Renshaw.In a January report the International Monetary Fund said Myanmar’s gross international reserves as of last September were $6.7 billion but did not mention where those reserves were.  Citing a U.S. banking expert, Radio Free Asia reported in March that the rest of the reserves were in Singapore.Sidoti said U.N. acceptance of the NUG’s credentials for Kyaw Moe Tun could also pressure the military to negotiate with the group, which the junta has branded a terrorist organization and refuses to talk to.“That’s what I see as the best means of reducing the level of violence — supporting the NUG, giving it the international recognition that it deserves, and telling the junta that there is no way forward without dealing with the representatives of the people in a peaceful way,” he said.The NUG’s minister of international cooperation, Sasa, who goes by one name told VOA it had already turned in a formal request asking the U.N. to reaffirm Kyaw Moe Tun’s credentials as Myanmar’s ambassador to the U.N. and was vigorously lobbying member states to back his claim to the seat.Win, lose or tieA spokesperson for the junta could not be reached for comment.Ye Myo Hein, however, at the Wilson Center, said an adviser to the regime, Yin Yin Nwe, last month warned via Facebook that if the government the military has set up is not recognized at the U.N., its offices in the country would be shuttered. He said he had also heard from military sources that the junta was privately repeating the threat to foreign officials.အသိပေးခြင်း အတွက်သာ။
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ဒီနေ့ ရှမ်း စော်ဘွားမျိုး တစ်ယောက်နဲ့
တိုင်းရင်းသားခေါင်းဆောင်တစ်ဦး မေးလို့…Posted by Yin Yin Nwe on Saturday, August 21, 2021Even so, the analysts agreed that a win for the junta’s candidate at this point seemed the least likely outcome. When Belarus, a close Russia ally, challenged a motion at the assembly in June to condemn the coup in Myanmar and forced a vote, the motion passed easily.Renshaw said a decision to leave Myanmar’s seat empty would be a rare move, but not without precedent, and send a mixed message that the military’s power grab had not succeeded but still might. She said the odds were that the U.N. would try to defuse the credentials dispute and defer the matter, leaving Kyaw Moe Tun in place.Sidoti added the Afghanistan factor. He said the Taliban’s forced takeover of the country just last month was sure to overshadow Myanmar at the General Assembly and that how member states resolve any competing Afghan credentials may spill over to their choices elsewhere.“It may be that there are much bigger issues at play than a straightforward rational decision on who should represent Myanmar,” Sidoti said.   
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A Chinese scientific research ship that set out Monday to explore parts of the South China Sea will flex Beijing’s muscle in a six-way sovereignty dispute without getting other countries riled up enough to chase the vessel away, experts believe.  The Shiyan 6 set off from Guangdong province near Hong Kong toward the northern area of the South China Sea for “multidisciplinary scientific tasks,” the Chinese state-run CGTN news website reported. The Global Times, another Chinese news website, said the ship would “carry out an important scientific mission of multidisciplinary comprehensive observation.”   The Shiyan 6 cost $77.37 million and can travel up to about 22,000 kilometers according to the Beijing-based Baidu online encyclopedia. It was launched in July of last year.  China Sends Ship as Warning to Vietnam: No Court Case, No Oil Drilling China sent a seismic survey vessel into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone earlier this month near an oil exploration tract Another Chinese survey ship passed near a Vietnamese energy exploration site in 2019 and again last year to assert Beijing’s claims to those waters. The Shiyan 6 may do the same, analysts say. “It’s some kind of, like, exercise for those survey ships to be familiar with the South China Sea,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, director of the Saigon Center for International Studies at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City. “It’s like a theater for those survey ships to do research and to harass the exploration in the region,” he said.  Beijing claims about 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea as its own, overlapping waters that five other governments say belongs to them. Chinese officials point to documents dating back more than 1,000 years to dynastic times as support for their claim. Rival claimants Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam cite a U.N. maritime convention. Taiwan claims most of the sea as well. Claimants prize the sea for fisheries, fossil fuel reserves and marine shipping lanes. Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, said, “The worst things that they [the Shiyan 6] could do to us is what they did to Vietnam, which is to start surveying and exploring for petroleum.”   The Shiyan 6 may again “harass” Vietnam’s oil project near the Vanguard Bank, a South China Sea feature where Vietnamese contractors have sought oil since 2019, Nguyen said.  The Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 got into a four-month standoff with Hanoi two years ago when it approached oil-rich Vanguard Bank, where Vietnam maintains oil drilling operations. The standoff ended when the Chinese ship left on its own, its mission apparently complete, but it returned to waters near Vietnam in April 2020 on a separate mission.A Year of Multiple Standoffs, Few Solutions in South China Sea DisputeChina pushed its weight in a disputed sea this year, but Vietnam and the Philippines pushed backAnother Chinese survey ship, operated by the Chinese Academy of Science, crossed into the Philippine exclusive economic zone last month, U.S. Naval War College faculty member Ryan Martinson said in a Twitter post in August. PRC research vessel “Hai Da Hao” currently operating 65nm east of Scarborough Shoal. This ship is operated by China Ocean University. pic.twitter.com/JWJkOaNhQC— Ryan Martinson (@rdmartinson88) August 11, 2021As a nonmilitary vessel, scholars say, the Shiyan 6 will attract relatively little international attention, although foreign governments are likely to track its course. The United States and its allies periodically send naval ships in response to Chinese military movement that they believe threatens international use of the South China Sea. China’s Likely Responses to European and Indian Warships in Sea it Calls its OwnChinese authorities may tail foreign vessels, protest verbally and target other countries one by one, analysts suggest Western powers, which have taken an increasingly active role in the South China Sea dispute this year, are likely to track the Shiyan 6, but without forcing it to leave, said Derek Grossman, senior analyst with the U.S.-based Rand Corporation research organization. Rival maritime claimants would avoid it, too, given China’s relative power. Beijing has the third-largest armed forces in the world. It has taken a lead in the maritime dispute over the past decade by building artificial islets for military use. If challenged, Grossman said, China would say the ship is just conducting scientific research.   The survey ship will probably gather information for military and civilian reference, Grossman said. One big project, he suggested, would be mapping the seabed itself. That research would help detect any fossil fuel and prepare for any conflict at sea.   “We actually have very little of the ocean mapped, so that type of information is extremely valuable if you are to do undersea operations in a military conflict,” he said.  
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North Korea has been banned from the 2022 Beijing Winter Games after the  International Olympic Committee suspended the isolated regime for not participating in this year’s Tokyo Olympics. IOC President Thomas Bach announced the decision Wednesday in Lausanne, telling reporters North Korea was the only nation that failed to send a team to Tokyo, which violated their obligations under the Olympic charter.   Pyongyang refused to send a team to Tokyo due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tokyo Olympics were held under a state of emergency imposed due to the growing rate of infections in the Japanese capital and throughout Japan.  Bach said the North Korean Olympic Committee will not receive any financial support during the suspension, but added that the IOC reserves the right to consider any North Korean individuals who qualify for the Beijing Olympics, and to even reconsider the duration of the North’s suspension. North Korea participated in the 2018 Winter Olympics that were staged in Pyeongchang in rival South Korea.   Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence-France Presse.  
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Methamphetamine from the super labs of lawless eastern Myanmar is surging as organized crime thrives in the instability caused by the February coup there, experts have told VOA, flooding neighboring countries with narcotics and carving out new channels to reach old markets.The rugged ungovernable Myanmar borderlands in Shan state are home to what is by many estimates the world’s largest meth trade, orchestrated by the drug lords of the Golden Triangle, an area at the juncture of China, Thailand and Laos.Countless metric tons of precursor chemicals are moved into the Golden Triangle and then the drugs, mainly meth pills (yaba), the highly addictive crystal meth (ice), and heroin, are sent back across the same borders.Myanmar’s coup removed the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.  Myanmar has been pitched into chaos since, with more than 1,000 pro-democracy protesters killed by police and the army, which is now fighting multiple ethnic groups and now facing the declaration of war by anti-coup rebels.Inside the turmoil, drug production has flourished in Shan state, as a blur of allegiances in the pursuit of profit ensure the meth pours out.“All the indications are that the military coup has been a win-win for these cartels,” Richard Horsey, senior Myanmar adviser to the International Crisis Group told VOA, adding that “super labs” producing ice have gone into overdrive whether they are run by “pro-military militias or anti-military armed groups.”“Law enforcement activity has greatly decreased and the general chaos creates new opportunities for illicit activities and incentives for all those involved in the trade to take advantage and earn money,” he said.Shan state is also the world’s second-biggest production area for opium poppies, the base ingredient of heroin. It is not yet clear how the Taliban’s need for income as they return to govern Afghanistan — the biggest poppy producer — could skew the market for heroin in Southeast Asia.Doubled volumes, halved pricesThailand, since Myanmar’s coup, has seized nearly 330 million yaba pills, according to the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board, more than double the amount from February through August last year. Ice seizures have stayed on par at around 15 metric tons so far, the ONCB said.The oversupply is pushing drug prices down, with authorities saying yaba pills now cost as little as $1.70 in Thai border areas, while the cost of a gram of the more addictive and potent ice has been slashed by half to $45.“If organized crime and their militia partners continue to push the limits of the drug trade in Shan there will be implications for Mekong neighbors like Thailand and Laos — somewhat into Vietnam and Cambodia,” Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said.“It can’t simply go on as it has been without more significant regional spillover and consequences,” he said.For Thailand, whose roads, ports and airports have made it the regional hub for drug trafficking, Myanmar’s coup is bad news.Authorities have tightened security along the mountainous northern border zone adjacent to Myanmar, but that has shifted trafficking eastward so that the drugs are now moved into Laos.Huge loads are then shuttled across the virtually unpoliceable Mekong River and into Thailand’s northeastern Isaan region, where the coronavirus has decimated incomes, leaving smuggling rings with a deep pool of couriers for their illicit wares.The Sept. 4 seizure of 4.3 million yaba tablets in a vehicle driven by a 31-year-old mother of two in Nakon Phanom province opposite Laos is a prime example of drug money seeping into poor communities, a local official told VOA.“Many people who have lost jobs during the pandemic have taken up trafficking, while kids forced out of school have also been swept up into drugs as dealers and users,” said Wassana Srikrason, a village head in nearby Ban Pang district.“There are more checkpoints along the northern border, so drugs from Myanmar have been pushed through Laos instead and into Thailand,” Wassana said.The trafficking volumes are so high, he added, that meth packages are now even marked with the Isaan city names where they are due to be “warehoused” before being shipped on to Bangkok, destined for the more lucrative markets of Australia, New Zealand and Japan.Experts say organized crime syndicates are digging deeper foundations across Southeast Asia eroding threadbare rule of law with corruption.“The drug situation in the Golden Triangle is becoming more complex and the drug economy in the region is becoming more powerful and influential,” the UNODC’s Douglas said. 
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Malaysia’s High Court has ruled in favor of a group of mothers who were seeking to pass on their Malaysian nationality to their children born overseas.Malaysia’s constitution allows men the automatic right to pass on citizenship to any children born on foreign soil, but the same rights did not apply to women.But High Court judge Akhtar Tahir ruled Thursday that the citizenship law on its own is discriminatory, and that it must be read together with another constitutional clause that outlaws discrimination on the basis of gender.Supporters of the legal challenge said the citizenship law forced some Malaysian women to remain in abusive marriages in order to retain custody of their children. They also said children also faced obstacles in accessing public services such as education and health care.The government had sought to have the women’s case dismissed. There was no immediate government response on Thursday’s decision by the High Court.Family Frontiers Malaysia, a gender-equality advocacy group, hailed the court’s ruling in a written statement, calling it “one step forward to a more egalitarian and just Malaysia.”Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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North Korea held a nighttime military parade early Thursday, state media announced, but does not appear to have shown off any ballistic missiles or other advanced weaponry.  The North held the parade after midnight to mark the 73rd anniversary of the country’s national founding, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the parade, sporting a tan, Western-style suit and a slimmed-down physique.  The 37-year-old leader, whose health has been the subject of constant speculation in Western media, has lost a significant amount of weight in recent months.  State media did not say whether Kim delivered any remarks at the event. It also did not mention whether any ballistic missiles were unveiled at the parade.  Instead, the parade featured small artillery, fire trucks, and rows of individuals wearing what were described as domestically produced orange hazmat suits, complete with hoods and gas masks, according to still images shown by state media. It is the third North Korean military parade in about a year and the first since U.S. President Joe Biden took office. Some analysts see the move as a possible way to pressure the U.S. amid stalled nuclear talks, though it is thought to be less provocative than a major weapons test.  Paramilitary parade held to mark the founding anniversary of the republic at Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, Sep. 9, 2021.North Korea has rejected the Biden administration’s repeated offers to resume talks and has recently threatened a return to tensions, after Washington and Seoul held annual joint military drills. North Korean state television has not broadcast footage of the parade. Analysts rely on such footage to assess such parades, since no international media or foreigners are typically allowed to attend. In the past, North Korean state television has delayed such reports for up to a day, before airing carefully produced parade footage. The North’s last military parade was in January, when it unveiled a new submarine-launched ballistic missile. At an October parade, it rolled out its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, which appears designed to overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.  All three parades were held at night, providing more dramatic shots of missiles, other weapons, and rows of goose-stepping soldiers.  North Korea often holds parades on major political anniversaries, both to demonstrate its latest military developments and to bolster domestic solidarity.  “We shouldn’t overinterpret foreign policy or negotiating signals from a parade that’s primarily aimed at domestic political audiences,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “North Korean society is under tremendous stress because of decisions made by the Kim regime. So, the parade is intended to show strength and serve as a quarantine morale booster,” he said. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, North Korea has enacted one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, nearly completely closing its borders, cutting off trade, and restricting domestic travel. It says it has detected no coronavirus cases, though few analysts believe that.  The lockdown has come with a major economic cost. Kim has repeatedly warned of food shortages, at one point even seeming to compare the situation to North Korea’s devastating 1990s famine. 
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Myanmar’s shadow government declared a “defensive war” on Tuesday that is being viewed by analysts as a call to arms against the junta controlling the country.The National Unity Government (NUG) was founded as a shadow government in the wake of February’s military coup by Myanmar’s national armed forces. The NUG is the main opposition group, consisting of ousted elected politicians and legislators that claim to be the country’s legitimate government.After NUG Acting President Duwa Lashi La called in a video for a nationwide uprising, there have reports that government has increased its military security presence in the capital, Yangon.Myanmar has been in crisis since the military takeover that prompted widespread opposition. The junta ousted the National League for Democracy party, the democratically elected government, and detained its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.Nationwide protests ensued, with hundreds of thousands resisting military rule and going on strike, spearheaded by the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Clashes followed, with the military harshly cracking down on demonstrators and over 1,000 killed according to the monitoring group the Association Assistance for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The military says the number is much lower.But as clashes have continued, rural areas of Myanmar, including ethnic minority regions, have been most affected. Government troops and ethnic armed organizations have engaged in sustained fighting, with reports of regular airstrikes and tens of thousands of displaced villagers.A People’s Defense Force (PDF), made up of militia groups and anti-coup demonstrators, has also been created in the wake of the crackdown and is in alignment with the NUG.Aung Thu Nyein, a political analyst, said previous claims of “D-Day” from other members of the NUG were deemed as hints of imminent attacks on junta forces, but yesterday’s announcement of a “defensive war” was more like a calling of arms.“After the declaration of war, as some PDF members are already trained in ethnic areas, there is pressure for the NUG from the people to do something distinctive,” he told VOA.The analyst added he expects more attacks and fighting in coming months.A leader of a guerrilla force that says it has about 100 soldiers within Myanmar’s ethnic controlled areas told VOA through a translator that he believes it’s the beginning of a large-scale civil war.Loi Samsit, which isn’t his real name, used to work as a humanitarian worker. Now he’s a rebel soldier who claims he is in alliance with the PDF.“That means war is about to come… We, the soldiers from the people, are former professionals, working with pens, now holding guns,” he said.Tun-Aung Shwe, the NUG’s representative to the Commonwealth of Australia, reiterated the necessity for those opposing the coup to resist the junta.“The announcement means that the NUG takes its national responsibility to protect its own people who are suffering a lot under the brutal repression of the military junta when the international community is watching and sharing their grave concerns on the situation,” he told VOA by email.But the NUG representative played down the possibility of a full-blown civil war.“I am expecting to see a well-coordinated, well-organized people revolution to the military junta and targeted attacks to the military and its pillars, including military communication and supply lines and security posts and also to see defections among the military personnel,” Shwe said.“I don’t think there will be a full-blown civil war because of the significant difference in terms of resources between the military junta and civilian government,” he added.Hudson Logan, a youth leader in the Area 21 Revolution group, a network tasked with assisting local PDF armies with new recruits and training, stressed that the “defensive war” has many components.“It will look like nationwide resistant movement in all possible forms. Armed resistance is part of the nationwide uprising, which may also include mass protests, mass disobedience and [without] collaboration to [the] military administration,” he told VOA in a message.Southeast Asian and western countries have called for peace and to refrain from violence.The U.S. State Department has updated its travel alerts for citizens within Myanmar amid the NUG’s declaration. Challenge expected at U.N. assemblyZaw Min Tun, the Myanmar military spokesman, refuted reports about revolt attempts, saying the announcement was for attention amid the upcoming credentials challenge at the United Nations next week, Reuters reported.At the 76th General Assembly session on September 14, Myanmar will be a hot topic, as the credentials committee, made up of nine countries, must recommend an entity to take the country’s U.N. seat. The choice comes down to either the military junta or representatives of the former government.UN to Discuss Myanmar Representation at General Assembly The Credentials Committee must decide whether the ousted government or the junta that seized power will take the UN seat After ASEAN, a 10-member union consisting of countries in the region, called an emergency meeting in April, a five-point consensus was developed in a bid to solve the Myanmar crisis. But a special envoy has yet to visit.Analyst Aung Thu Nyein thinks the diplomatic front is key for the NUG because of insecurities between ethnic and anti-coup opposition groups, and that the war announcement is being used partly as a show of force.“In my opinion, the NUG’s strength is at the diplomatic front and not with the military. They have been talking to the ethnic armed groups, but it seems not ready to form a unified alliance. It is untimely, as the ASEAN special envoy called a few days ago to cease hostilities from both sides. Definitely, it is the response to the special envoy before his visit to Myanmar,” he added.Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, gained independence in 1948 from Britain, but most of its modern history has been governed under military rule.In Myanmar’s November general elections, the military claimed unsubstantiated electoral fraud. On February 1, the Myanmar military, also known as Tatmadaw, removed the democratically elected government. National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were detained and have since been charged.
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South Korean legislation intended to combat what authorities view as “fake news” could undermine press freedom in one of Asia’s strongest democracies, analysts say. The proposed revision to the Press Arbitration Act, backed by South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party, would significantly expand the ability of courts to punish accredited reporters and media outlets deemed to have intentionally published false information.  If passed, the legislation would amount to a rare example of a liberal democracy responding to the growing challenge of disinformation by targeting traditional media, such as newspapers and television broadcasters. “At a time when authoritarian governments are increasingly adopting so-called ‘fake news’ laws to stifle criticism, it is disappointing to see a democratic country like South Korea follow this negative trend,” said Scott Griffen, deputy director of the International Press Institute, a Vienna-based free speech monitoring group.    UN concerned  
Under the proposal, claimants would be able to sue for up to five times the estimated damage caused by a deliberate dissemination of false news. That appears to be “utterly disproportionate,” according to Irene Khan, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression. In a letter to South Korea’s government, Khan offered a detailed and forceful critique of the proposed legislation, saying it would provide “excessive discretion to the authorities that may lead to arbitrary implementation.”  The bill’s “very vague language,” she added, “may limit a wide range of expression that is essential to a democratic society, including news reporting, criticism of the government, political leaders and other public figures, and the expression of unpopular and minority opinions.”   Restoring public trust?  Supporters say the new rules will help improve the South Korean public’s low confidence in domestic media.According to the latest annual study by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, just 32% of South Koreans trust the media. That is among the lowest of the 46 countries surveyed. Even so, several opinion polls show only a narrow majority of South Koreans appearing to support the legislation. “The revision of the [Press] Arbitration Act is the first step toward the media restoring its public credibility,” said Representative Kim Seung-won, a member of South Korea’s Democratic Party.  In an interview with VOA, Kim also said the bill will provide more redress for those hurt by inaccurate reports. 
 
“There are more than 4,000 instances each year in which fake news is judged to have caused damage,” he said. “So, it is necessary to relieve those damages, correct misinformation, compel follow-up reports, and strengthen the media’s editorial process.”   Messy media environment  South Korea boasts a free but often divisive and boisterous press. Many of the country’s biggest newspapers have links to chaebols — powerful, family-run conglomerates — and traditionally take a conservative stance on political and economic issues. Other smaller papers are explicitly liberal.  FILE – This photo illustration taken in Seoul on Nov. 9, 2020 shows the frontpages of South Korea’s newspapers carrying stories and pictures of US President-elect Joe Biden.As in other countries, social media has fractured the South Korean media landscape and deepened political divisions. Polarization intensified after the 2017 impeachment of conservative President Park Geun-hye – the daughter of South Korea’s former military strongman, Park Chung-hee. She was subsequently sentenced to prison on corruption charges. After the Park scandal, many older conservatives, who respected the country’s former military rulers, became disillusioned with traditional media. They instead migrated to YouTube, which offered alternative information sources.FILE – South Korean ousted leader Park Geun-hye arrives at a court in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 25, 2017.Some of those far-right YouTube channels peddle far-fetched and unproven assertions, including claims that last year’s legislative election was rigged by shadowy communist forces.During the pandemic, many conservative leaders have used YouTube to call for mass anti-government protests that violate South Korea’s strict COVID-19 social distancing guidelines. Other social media have problems, too, including cyberbullying and vicious personal attacks that came to the fore in 2019 after two female Korean pop stars took their own lives. However, the law under discussion wouldn’t apply to private individuals on social media, only to officially accredited outlets and reporters.   Elevating clickbait  
  
Many journalists complain the bill does not address another major issue: South Korea’s massively influential online portals, such as Naver and Daum, which curate and host news stories from various outlets on their own websites.  FILE – The Naver homepage is seen on a screen in Singapore, Oct. 28, 2015.FILE – A commuter checks his phone as he sits in a train station of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway in Seoul, on August 24, 2021.South Korean journalists oppose  A wide range of South Korean newspapers, reporters, and journalism associations have criticized the proposal. Many say the new rules would discourage reporting that exposes powerful people and organizations. “If this act passes, the natural outcome will be more self-censorship by journalists,” said Lee Jin-dong, who heads his own investigative news outlet, Newsverse. “And their companies may pressure them to avoid lawsuits.”  A young broadcast reporter at one of South Korea’s top television news stations said he understands more media regulation is needed, but believes it should be done in a way that doesn’t threaten the idea of journalism itself. “If this bill passes, I feel I will be unable to raise questions about presidential candidates or possible government ministers or conglomerates,” said the reporter, who also requested anonymity.   Backlash forces delay  Even some ruling party politicians have spoken against the bill. “There are some problematic provisions within this law,” Lee Sang-min, a Democratic Party lawmaker, told VOA. “The intention is good, but we have to find a better balance between freedom of speech and legal regulation.”   FILE – South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in (center L) delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the 21st National Assembly term in Seoul on July 16, 2020.The backlash by South Korean civic groups may be having an effect. Though the legislation was expected to pass late last month, the Democratic Party agreed to delay it while an eight-member “discussion body” discusses possible changes.  In the end, the party can do whatever it wants, due to its parliamentary supermajority. Many journalists are watching closely. “The press has a lot of problems, it’s true,” said a reporter who covers legal issues. The reporter, like others contacted by VOA, spoke only on condition of anonymity, added, “But the solution is not the current media arbitration law. This will only worsen social conflict.”   
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