A former senior journalist at Hong Kong’s now-closed pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was released from custody Tuesday, two days after he was arrested at the airport, media reported.
 
Fung Wai-kong, 57, became the latest person from the media outlet to be targeted after a raid on the newspaper by 500 officers nearly two weeks ago and the arrests of five executives, two of whom have been charged under a sweeping new national security law.
 
Live footage showed Fung leaving a Hong Kong police station but he declined to comment to reporters.
 
In an email response for comment on Fung’s release, police said only that a male suspect had been released from custody. Investigations were ongoing and the person needed to report back to police in late July.
 
It was not immediately clear what the investigation into Fung was focused on. Fung is the seventh employee at the media group to be arrested in recent weeks, deepening concerns over press freedoms in the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
 
Hong Kong media outlets including online platform Stand News said Fung was released on cash bail of HK $200,000 ($25,760), had his travel documents confiscated and was ordered to report to police in late July.
 
Fung could not be reached for comment.
 
The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The government has said previously that media freedoms in the global financial hub are respected but not absolute and they cannot endanger national security.
 
Next Digital, the publisher of Apple Daily, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
 
Apple Daily, a popular tabloid, was forced to fold following the raid on its headquarters on June 17 and the freezing of key assets and bank accounts. It printed its final edition last Thursday.
 
Authorities say dozens of the paper’s articles may have violated the national security law that Beijing imposed on the financial hub last year, the first instance of authorities taking aim at media reports under the legislation.
 
Hong Kong returned to China with the promise of continued wide-ranging freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including freedom of speech and an independent judiciary.
 
Next Digital said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange late Tuesday that it had accepted a proposal to divest Amazing Sino, which operates the online edition of Taiwan’s Apple Daily.
 
The move comes more than a month after it ceased printing its Taiwan edition on the fiercely democratic island, which China views as a breakaway province, blaming declining advertising revenue and difficult business conditions in Hong Kong linked to politics. 
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The military takeover in Myanmar has given the junta full control of the country’s lucrative and conflict-ridden jade mining, providing it with profits and leverage for consolidating power, researchers said Tuesday.  
A flareup in fighting around the mines in Hpakant, in remote Kachin state, also is adding to instability in the border region, independent research group Global Witness said in its report.  
Army and ethnic guerrilla forces have been fighting in Kachin for years. But they had largely cooperated to share in profits from mining of the world’s richest jade deposits, making the industry a hotbed for corruption instead of a national asset that could be invested for the public good.  
Global Witness estimates the annual losses in the tens of millions of dollars.  It and other experts say the Feb. 1 coup has disrupted the de facto ceasefire that had held around the mines, with fighting breaking out even in the jade-producing zone.  
“It’s an extremely unstable situation where the rule of law is just completely broken down,” Keel Dietz, one of the report’s authors, told The Associated Press.  People stand atop a ridge overlooking the scene of a mudslide at a jade gemstone mining site, April 23, 2019, in Hpakant area of Kachin state, northern Myanmar.The civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi made halting progress in cleaning up the industry after taking power in 2016. It suspended issuing or renewing jade mining permits. A new law restricts licenses to a maximum of three years, adding to the incentive to mine illicitly and as quickly as possible.  
Now the military, known as the Tatmadaw, controls who can mine and who can’t and can dole out licenses to buy loyalty and try to splinter rival groups, Dietz said.  
Global Witness and other groups are calling for stronger sanctions against the junta to help counter what has become a free-for-all rush to dig out as much of the precious stone as possible.  
“It is up to the international community to limit the amount of funding the military can receive from selling Myanmar’s natural resources by preventing the import of those resources and blocking financial transactions that pay for them,” the report says.  
In an earlier report, Global Witness documented how the industry is dominated by networks of military elites, drug lords and crony companies. The situation has barely changed, those familiar with the region say.  
That has created incentives for both sides in the conflict to maximize production, at a huge cost to the environment. Nearly a half-million people migrate into the region to work in the mines or to pick through mine tailings, hunting for stones that might have valuable jade inside. Hundreds of have died from landslides on the unstable slopes of the open-pit mines.
Profits from the industry are seized by those controlling the mines and trade routes.  
“Jade probably has been the military’s most lucrative sector except petroleum. Other mining like copper has made them a lot of money too. Rare earths less so, although not insignificant,” said Edith Mirante, director of Project Maje, which researches Myanmar’s environmental issues.
The U.S. government and United Kingdom have imposed sanctions on Myanmar Gems Enterprise, on key military-controlled companies, military leaders, their family members and other companies either controlled by or linked to the army.  
The potential impact of sanctions against the gemstone industry is limited, however, since nearly all jade and a large share of other precious stones and pearls produced in Myanmar go to China, often through illicit channels.  
Many of the mining operations are conducted by Chinese companies allied with Myanmar partners. Over the decades, the military have often extracted huge revenues from mining while the Kachin have arrangements to tax smuggling routes into China, the destination for most of the jade mined in the region.  
Now, with people in Kachin protesting against the coup, antagonisms are deepening, said David Dapice, an expert on Southeast Asia at Harvard University’s Ash Center.
“A lot of fighting is over the share of who gets what,” with none of those involved prepared to trust each other, he said in an email. “The military has circled the wagons anyway and is not in a compromising mood.”
At times in the past, fighting has spilled over the border, killing or injuring Chinese civilians. But the graver, longer term problem is lawlessness, a breakdown in the rule of law that “has the potential to supercharge other illegal activities, such as narcotics production and animal trafficking, that the Chinese government is likely more concerned about than it is about jade,” Dietz said.  
“Instability breeds instability and I think that’s really important especially for the Chinese government to understand. This is a disaster brewing right on their border,” he said. 
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The former mayor of South Korea’s second-largest city was jailed Tuesday on a three-year sentence for sexually abusing two city employees during his tenure. The lawyers of Oh Keo-don didn’t immediately return calls and text messages asking whether they plan to appeal. Busan’s district court also ordered Oh to receive counseling and banned him from jobs at child welfare organizations and disability facilities for five years following the end of his jail term. Oh, who was seen as a key ally of Busan-raised President Moon Jae-in, stepped down as the city’s mayor in April 2020 after admitting he had “unnecessary physical contact” with a female public servant who accused him of groping her in his office. The unidentified woman said Oh’s behavior caused her post traumatic stress disorder, according to her lawyers. Oh was later separately accused of making unwanted sexual contact with another female city employee in 2018. Oh’s lawyers insisted it was unclear his behavior was responsible for the woman’s PTSD. They pleaded for leniency, saying that the 72-year-old Oh made positive contributions to society and was dealing with health issues that cause cognitive impairment. The court rejected such claims, saying it was clear that Oh abused his status while harassing the women and that his actions weren’t accidental or one-off in nature. “Even based on materials submitted by the defendant, it’s difficult to believe that the defendant has a degree of cognitive impairment that would have influenced his actions when he was committing the crimes,” the court said in a statement. Moon’s Democratic Party has been rocked by sexual misconduct allegations surrounding some of its major politicians. Former Chungcheong Province Governor Ahn Hee-jung, once seen as a presidential hopeful, is currently in prison for raping his former secretary. Park Won-soon, then Seoul’s mayor, was found dead of an apparent suicide in July 2020 after a female employee accused him of extended sexual harassment. Moon’s liberal party lost the mayoral by-elections in both Seoul and Busan to conservative opposition candidates in April, a huge setback that analysts say possibly set the stage for an unpredictable presidential vote in March of next year. 
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Nearly five months since Myanmar’s military took control of the country, the “Spring Revolution” has sparked nationwide demonstrations and a crackdown that’s cost hundreds of lives. But the armed forces haven’t limited themselves to smashing protesters. They’ve gone after journalists reporting on them, too.  Mratt Kyaw Thu, 31, is one who managed to escape. Mratt Kyaw Thu fled to Madrid after months on the run. An open critic of the junta, he is one of thousands who are wanted by the armed forces. Now he finds the continued crackdown hard to watch. “I’m feeling so depressed. I’ve been crying all day, I don’t know what to do,” he told VOA in a June phone interview. Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, has used the country’s penal code law to target anyone who interferes with government operations. Those found guilty face years in jail. Mratt Kyaw Thu said that the threat of jail never concerned him. But the fear of being picked up and tortured in detention was too much. “It’s really common for military to torture overnight and call the family member to take the dead body in the morning,” he told VOA. The military has detained thousands since the February 1 coup, including multiple members of the media. Freed U.S. editor Nathan Maung recently spoke of his ordeal – including being beaten, interrogated and deprived of food and water – while U.S. journalist Danny Fenster remains in Yangon’s Insein Prison.Detained American Journalist Appears in Myanmar Special CourtDanny Fenster is accused of fomenting dissent against military governmentMratt Kyaw Thu decided to leave Myanmar after he saw grotesque images of a National League for Democracy (NLD) politician who had been tortured and killed. “[In] the pictures, the military tortured him, they even poured hot water down his throat … his tongue and his eyes come out from his face. That picture shocked me a lot,” he said. The freelancer has been a journalist for over a decade. Mratt Kyaw Thu won Agency France Press’s Kate Webb Award in 2017 for his coverage of the Rohingya genocide. After the military shut down the internet, he worked to report factual information undistorted by pro-military groups. But the junta, officially the State Administrative Council (SAC), quickly denounced his work. “I think February 12 they announced my name as fake news,” he said. His name came further to attention of the junta following a March interview he conducted with a general who had defected and joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a pro-democracy campaign that has seen thousands of workers go on strike. An altercation during protests in Yangon chilled him. “Two policemen just emerged, appeared in front of me, pointed with their guns [and said], ‘If you are not a protester just go away, I don’t want to shoot you.’ This is the moment I was very distraught, very fearful.” “They were ready to shoot someone against them. It was a terrible, horrible, experience,” he said. In another incident, Mratt Kyaw Thu said he was inside a friend’s apartment when “even sound grenades and gunfire hit my wall.” He said he risked being shot were he to observe from the balcony. At one point, the Myanmar military’s 77th Light Infantry Division (LID) – known for violence during previous uprisings in the country – showed up on the street where he lived. Human Rights Watch accused the division of firing at protesters in 2007. Mratt Kyaw Thu eventually left Yangon after hiding in an “escape area” with rebel ethnic armed groups. On April 5, the military announced an arrest warrant for the then-on-the-run journalist. Mratt Kyaw Thu had been hiding in villages near the border while dodging nearby airstrikes. “The whole village had to move, had to flee into the forest. They have to leave their houses, and it was a very tragic event for them,” he said. Mratt Kyaw Thu was able to obtain a visa for Spain. He first tried for asylum in Germany at a stopover in Frankfurt. But he was refused entry under European Union regulations governing asylum seekers.  For 38 days, Mratt Kyaw Thu was kept within a Frankfurt Airport detention center with little to do and no contact with the outside world. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, “I couldn’t even talk to people,” he said. Mratt Kyaw Thu finally was released and arrived in Spain on June 1. Although safe, Mratt Kyaw Thu admits he’s struggling to adapt. And there are regrets. “I can have coffee, go out shopping. At the same time, a lot of people are dying in my country, risking their lives. I’m sitting doing nothing; I feel so guilty,” he said. Mratt Kyaw Thu continues to fact-check and report about Myanmar’s dire situation on his social media accounts. On Facebook, he has a following of more than 495,000 followers combined. He’s under no illusions about the prospect of returning. “As long as the dictator, Min Aung Hlaing, is in the chair, in power, I cannot go back,” Mratt Kyaw Thu said. “I’m a fugitive forever.”  General Min Aung Hlaing has led the Tatmadaw for a decade and is de facto ruler since disputing election results in November 2020 and jailing members of the government, including State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. The general has been sanctioned in recent years by the United States and Britain for abuses of ethnic minorities in Myanmar.  
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The United States said it looks forward to this week’s trade talks with Taiwan as the two economies continue to strengthen bilateral trade ties, despite China’s objection.   After a five-year pause, the U.S. and Taiwan will resume talks under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) council meeting Wednesday.  “Taiwan is a leading democracy and major economy and a security partner,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Monday during a briefing. “And we will continue to strengthen our relationship across all areas, all the areas we cooperate, including on economic issues. We’re committed to the importance of the U.S.- Taiwan trade and investment relationships.”  In Beijing, Chinese officials voiced their opposition. “China has all along opposed any U.S. attempt to elevate relations in essence or engage in official interactions with Taiwan in any form,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a recent briefing.    In a statement, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan will continue its close economic and trade relationship with the U.S., further “exploring cooperation in areas of mutual interest” through talks under TIFA.  Taiwan is the 10th-largest trading partner of the U.S., and the U.S. is Taiwan’s second-largest trading partner.    The U.S. has maintained a robust cultural, commercial and unofficial relationship with Taiwan after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979.  US Encourages Closer Ties with Taiwan Without Changing ‘One China’ PolicyThe State Department announced new measures to encourage US government engagement with Taiwan that reflects a “deepening unofficial relationship””Our support for Taiwan is rock solid,” Psaki said, adding the U.S. is concerned about China’s “attempts to intimidate others” in the Indo-Pacific region.    “We’ve also been clear publicly and privately about our growing concerns about China’s aggressions toward Taiwan. The P.R.C. has taken [an] increasingly [coercive] course of action to undercut democracy in Taiwan. We will continue to express our strong concerns to Beijing in that regard,” she added. In 1994, the U.S. and Taiwan signed TIFA, which served as a platform to advance bilateral trade and investment interests. Since then, 10 rounds of trade talks have taken place. It stalled after 2016 as the U.S. focused on trade talks with China.   VOA’s Steve Herman contributed to this report.
 
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Indonesia is struggling with another peak of COVID-19. Infections topped two million in June, with the Delta variant driving the current surge. And as the county’s pediatricians point out, 1 out of 8 of confirmed cases are found in children and the fatality rate among children is the highest in the world. VOA’s  Rendy Wicaksana reports.
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Behind roadblocks and hundreds of police in the Chinese capital of Beijing on Friday, fireworks resembling the national flag bloomed over the city as part of secretive and tightly choreographed rehearsals for the 100th anniversary of China’s Communist Party.
Beijing has shut down traffic, decked streets in patriotic flower arrangements and national flags, and ramped up surveillance and security this week in preparation for the centenary event on July 1.
The covert rehearsals represent the final stages of a yearlong planning effort, designed to glorify party history and cement domestic loyalty to China’s socialist system.
“Without the Communist Party, there is no new China,” read new propaganda posters throughout the city.
Plans for the event haven’t been fully revealed, though state media and government agencies have hinted at a large-scale theatrical event in Tiananmen Square. A performance is scheduled for Monday at the Bird’s Nest stadium, built for the 2008 Olympics.A police officer wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus stands guard near masked Chinese paramilitary officers preparing for their duties near rows of seats setup on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 28, 2021.The anniversary has been preceded by a clampdown on potential dissident activity, including a spate of arrests this year under a law banning the defamation of national heroes, and an online venue for citizens to report “historical nihilists,” a phrase referring to those sharing unsanctioned versions of party history.
Upgraded security and its attendant disruption aren’t unusual ahead of major political events in the capital, but the fanfare has taken on added importance amid new political challenges to the party at home and abroad.
“It comes down to legitimacy. … What you’re sitting through in those events is an extended performance for the benefit of the domestic public to basically legitimize an unelected government. Which is why, in short, these things are so important,” said Graeme Smith, a fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University specializing in Chinese politics.Chinese women take a selfie with a floral decoration with the words “Without the Communist Party, There would be no new China” in Beijing, June 28, 2021.No room for error
On June 23, residents in the old-style hutongs in Beijing awoke to find alleys decked out in a coordinated display of Chinese national flags, visible by almost every doorway.
Beginning in May, teams dressed in orange work uniforms became a common sight throughout the city, upgrading roadside decor and creating elaborate floral arrangements made up of 2.3 million seedlings and potted plants, according to state media.
At the same time, security organs have ramped up surveillance and other restrictions.  Last week, police officers went door to door in Beijing’s central Dongcheng district checking house registrations and confirming the number of people living at each address, people in the neighborhood told Reuters.
A Dongcheng police official told Reuters that such visits were “normal inspections.”
People on a citywide list of residents suffering from mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, received house calls and phone checks from authorities, a common practice ahead of major political events, according to two people who received the calls and a doctor who said many of their patients had been contacted.
The Beijing city government did not reply to a request for comment.
Four merchants on China’s top e-commerce site, Taobao.com, told Reuters they had been banned from shipping items including gas bottles and other flammable products to Beijing residents beginning in June. Taobao’s owner, Alibaba, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“It’s like having an enormous birthday party and not wanting your embarrassing neighbors to spoil it,” said Smith, adding that propaganda around so-called “sensitive days” on Beijing’s calendar can also serve as a warning to potential dissidents.
Throughout China, local state-run institutions, including hospitals, schools and military units, will hold special events marking the anniversary, including political education sessions and party history exhibitions.
“The whole army will transform the political enthusiasm radiated by the celebrations into practical actions to advance the cause of strengthening the country and the army in the new era,” Ren Guoqiang, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, said June 23.
Censorship of China’s already tightly controlled cyberspace has intensified.
Two people working at the Tianjin-based censorship unit of social media firm ByteDance Ltd. and one Beijing-based censor for Chinese search engine Baidu.com said they had received new directives in recent months on removing negative commentary about the anniversary. Neither company immediately replied to requests for comment.
“There’s no room for error,” said one ByteDance staffer, who declined to be named because they are not permitted to speak to foreign media.
As of Friday, patriotic fervor on display in Beijing’s streets was largely mirrored online. Despite tight censorship, however, a small number of netizens griped over the road closings and costly events that are closed to the public.
“My family has lived in Beijing for several generations. I have become accustomed to this,” said one commenter on the social media site Weibo.com, venting concerns about pollution from the mass firework displays. “This city has sacrificed too much for politics.”
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Three separate hearings on criminal charges brought against deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi took place Monday in the capital, Naypyitaw.Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, told journalists the first hearing involved two witnesses testifying on charges she violated the country’s Natural Disaster Management Law for breaking COVID-19 restrictions while campaigning during last year’s parliamentary election.In the second hearing, Khin Maung Zaw said the court sustained an objection to the defense team’s cross-examination of a police officer in the case against Suu Kyi under the Communications Law on the grounds the question may affect the court’s verdict.The final hearing involved charges she violated the country’s Export-Import Law.Khin Maung Zaw said the hearings have been adjourned until next Monday, July 5.The 76-year-old Suu Kyi has been detained since February 1, when her civilian government was overthrown nearly three months after her National League for Democracy party scored a landslide electoral victory. Along with violating the COVID-19 restrictions, she has been accused of illegally possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies, breaching the Official Secrets Act, inciting public unrest, misusing land for her charitable foundation, and accepting illegal payments of $600,000 in cash plus 11 kilograms of gold.Ousted President Win Myint and former Naypyitaw mayor Myo Aung are being tried alongside Suu Kyi.Electoral fraud allegationThe junta has cited widespread electoral fraud in the November 8 election as a reason for the coup, an allegation the civilian electoral commission denied. The junta has threatened to dissolve the NLD over the allegations.  The coup triggered a crisis in that led to deadly anti-junta demonstrations and clashes among several armed ethnic groups and the ruling junta.In a campaign to quell the protests, the government has killed more than 800 protesters and bystanders since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tracks casualties and arrests in Myanmar. 
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Australia is facing a smaller and older population as a result of coronavirus, according to a landmark government study that is published every five years. The Fifth Intergenerational Report is forecasting slower population growth in Australia due to falling levels of immigration and a sharp decline in the fertility rate.    The reports are published every five years. They forecast the outlooks for the economy and the budget over the next four decades.   Modeling has suggested that the economic legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be felt for many years to come. It has highlighted the ballooning costs of health care as the population ages.   By 2060, there will be just 2.7 people of working age for every person aged over 65 in Australia, compared to the current level of four people, which puts a greater strain on public finances.  The taxes of working-age people help to support the essential services for a growing cohort of older Australians.   The government has said its challenge was to fund aged care services while “maintaining a sustainable tax burden” on workers.   Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.   “What this Fifth Intergenerational Report does show is that the Australian economy continues to grow, that we have debt increasing but it remains sustainable and low by international standards, but that we do have a major challenge ahead of us, namely the aging of the population, the longer-term impacts of COVID and the need for Australia to boost productivity,” Frydenberg said.Twenty-five million people live in Australia.  The Fifth Intergenerational Report has predicted that number will to grow to about 39 million by 2060, which is less than previous estimates.     It is the first time that long-term population projections have been revised downwards.  It means the Australian economy will be smaller and the community will be older than previously anticipated.    Migration has boosted economic growth and can reduce the impact of an aging population, but Australia closed its international borders in March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19 and immigration has all but stopped.  Even when travel restrictions are eased, the government says migration levels will take years to recover.  Girls born in Australia between 2017 and 2019 can expect to live 85-years, or about 4 years longer than boys. 
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Local news outlets in Hong Kong say a former columnist at the now-defunct pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper has been arrested while trying to leave the city. Hong Kong police issued a report saying a 57-year-old man, whose name was not released, had been arrested at the airport Sunday night and charged under the national security law for suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security.  The police statement did not reveal the man’s identity, but news reports identified him  as Fung Wai-kong.   The Hong Kong Journalists Association condemned the arrest in a statement, and warned that “If even the pen of a literati cannot be accommodated, Hong Kong will hardly be regarded as an international city.” If the reports are accurate, Fung would be the seventh staffer at Apple Daily to be detained in the days before and after the newspaper shut down operations.  The newspaper’s publisher, Next Digital, issued 1 million copies of its final print edition last Thursday, a day after the publisher announced it was closing shop citing “the current circumstances prevailing in Hong Kong.” The decision was made nearly a week after more than 500 police officers raided the newspaper’s offices and arrested its chief editor, Ryan Law, and four other executives with the newspaper and Next Digital. Authorities then froze $2.3 million of its assets, leaving the company unable to pay its staffers.        Law and Chief Executive Officer Cheung Kim-hung have been charged with colluding with a foreign country and have been denied bail.     The day before Apple Daily’s closure, another staffer, identified as the newspaper’s lead editorial writer and columnist, was arrested.  Police said a 55-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to collude with a foreign country or foreign forces. Apple Daily and its 73-year-old publisher, Next Digital founder and owner Jimmy Lai, have been the target of Hong Kong authorities since China imposed a strict national security law last June in response to the massive and sometimes violent anti-government protests in 2019.       The newspaper’s offices were raided last August after Lai was arrested at his house on suspicion of foreign collusion.     Hong Kong authorities have cited dozens of articles published by Apple Daily it says violated the security law, which targets anyone authorities suspected of carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces.  Apple Daily’s closure appears to have had a chilling effect on at least one Hong Kong news outlet, the online-based Stand News, which announced Sunday it was removing older published commentaries and would no longer accept donations from readers. The outlet’s publishers said the moves were taken to protect its supporters, writers and editorial staff.   Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was included in this report.
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Pressure from China over a festering maritime sovereignty dispute has added momentum to Malaysia’s drive for a more modern air force including the purchase of 36 new aircraft, analysts believe. Malaysia’s Ministry of Defense issued a notice June 22 saying that it would accept bids for light combat aircraft and trainers for the air force. The three-month open tender for an initial 18 aircraft fits into the Malaysian Royal Air Force’s broader modernization effort. A plan dubbed Capability 55 calls for getting another 18 aircraft of the same type by 2025 plus six unmanned aerial systems to improve maritime patrols. The air force’s pursuit of new hardware follows a navy modernization made public in 2017. Analysts said at the time the fleet upgrades would help monitor for Chinese vessels in the contested, resource-rich South China Sea.Malaysia Buying Chinese Ships to Protect its Waters From China, Others

        Malaysia’s deal to buy Chinese naval ships and step up patrols against any intrusions from China underscores the complexity of relations between the two countries and signals growing concern over national defense.Officials from the Southeast Asian country, with a coastline stretching from the Sulu Sea westward to the Indian Ocean, said in November they would get four littoral mission ships made in China.Littoral mission ships are relatively small vessels designed in the past for stealth combat near…

Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry protested earlier this month over 16 Chinese warplanes that were picked up by radar 111 kilometers off the coast of Borneo Island located in the South China Sea.Malaysia Accuses Chinese Military of Violating its AirspaceMalaysia to lodge formal protest with Chinese envoy over “intrusion”   China’s flyby raised the urgency of bringing aircraft up to date in Malaysia, experts in the Southeast Asian country say. “That incident highlights the need for Malaysia to have more modern patrol aircraft, if anything,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. “I think in general our air force equipments are really outdated.”   China’s activity by itself didn’t prompt the air force overhaul but can hardly be overlooked, said Shariman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia.   “It’s China but it’s not China,” he said. “It’s the long-term thing. It’s (been) in the plan for some time already.” British-made Hawk aircraft in the air force today are “platforms for defending the sovereignty of our nation’s air space” despite their age of 25 years at the time, chief General Tan Sri Affendi Buang said in 2019 via a Malaysia-based Sun Daily news website report.   Hawks lack the payload of more modern planes, Lockman said. The aircraft model is often used for training rather than formal missions, as well. Malaysia sent Hawks to intercept the 16 Chinese planes this month to monitor their flight path. Malaysia entered a prolonged standoff in November with China over a disputed tract of sea, also near Borneo, known for undersea fossil fuel reserves. Malaysia is the more aggressive driller for oil and gas in waters where the standoff took place. Beijing claims about 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea, which extends from Borneo north to Hong Kong. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam call parts of the sea their own, and Taiwan claims most of it. Claimants prize the waterway for fisheries and fossil fuel reserves. China is the most militarily advanced of the six governments. The others resent China’s landfilling of small islets in the sea over the past decade for military use and passing vessels through waters they call their own. Beijing cites historical usage records to back its claims including in the exclusive economic zones of other states such as Malaysia.   “It appears that the biggest conventional challenge that the Malaysian military faces from now is China’s growing presence in the form of an increasing number of naval and coast guard vessels and the Chinese newly built installations in the South China Sea,” said Fabrizio Bozzato, senior research fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Ocean Policy Research Institute.   Malaysia’s defense ministry will probably look at buying the new aircraft from Europe, India, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, according to analysts and defense media reports. Citizens in Malaysia may chafe at the bill, however, Lockman said. They would expect the government to keep pumping money into stimulus as COVID-19 caseloads prolong a severe lockdown. “Spending on stuff made abroad is not exactly a popular thing,” he said. 
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Violence in post-coup Myanmar has escalated as anti-junta “self-defense” forces step up to take on the military, according to a new report warning of “enormous” human cost if the regime uses its full power in subsequent crackdowns.Myanmar has been in turmoil since the February coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, with more than 880 killed in a junta crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.In some areas, locals, often using hunting rifles or weapons manufactured at makeshift jungle factories, have formed “defense forces” to fight back.In response, the military has used helicopters and artillery, including against groups in northwestern Chin state and along the eastern border with Thailand.”Faced with armed insurrection, the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military] can be expected to unleash its military might against civilians,” the International Crisis Group, a non-profit, non-governmental think tank that seeks to prevent conflict, said in its new report. “The human cost will be enormous –- particularly for women, children and the elderly, who face the greatest hardships from violence and displacement,” the report said.  Clashes have taken place in areas that have not seen conflict for decades, forcing humanitarian agencies to race to set up new operations and supply lines, the ICG said.An estimated 230,000 people have been displaced by fighting and insecurity so far, the United Nations said last week.  The self-defense groups add to the volatile mix in the poor Southeast Asian country, where more than 20 ethnic rebel groups were already in various stages of conflict with the state before the coup.As the economy collapses, the new militias may “seek sources of revenue beyond the ad hoc community donations that have so far sustained them,” the ICG warned.It is also unlikely that the shadow “National Unity Government,” formed largely of lawmakers from Suu Kyi’s ousted government, will be able to bring them under its control, it added.  Clashes involving civilian militias and the military have largely been restricted to rural areas.But last week, at least six people died in a gun battle between security forces and a self-defense group in Mandalay, the country’s second largest city. 
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North Korean state television has acknowledged Kim Jong Un’s apparent weight loss, even admitting that the leader’s health is a subject of concern in Pyongyang. The admission was broadcast during an interview with a North Korea resident on state-run Korean Central Television, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. “The people were most heartbroken to see the respected general secretary looking thinner,” the resident said in the interview broadcast Friday. “Everyone is saying that they are moved to tears.” The comments were included in an unrelated KCTV report featuring street interviews with residents expressing opinions on a variety of topics, including a recent cultural performance.  The report did not mention what, if any, health issues Kim was experiencing. Analysts said, though, that it still appears important that Pyongyang is acknowledging his changed appearance. “Minimally, someone decided that Kim’s visible weight loss would be the elephant in the room — the now palpably much slimmer elephant in the room — if they DIDN’T mention it, as everyone is talking about it. You can’t not notice it,” Aidan Foster-Carter, a veteran, Britain-based Korea specialist, told VOA in an online message. The 37-year-old’s health has often been the subject of intense speculation, most recently after he appeared on state TV looking much trimmer than he had several weeks before. 
 
Though Kim’s new physique was apparent in his thinner face and baggier clothes, one news outlet found a way to possibly confirm the weight loss by comparing state media images of the leader’s $12,000 IWC Portofino Automatic watch.   NK News, a Seoul-based news outlet, concluded that the length of the watch’s strap past the buckle was longer in recent state media images than those published in November.   Rumors about Kim’s health intensified last year after he skipped a major public birthday celebration for his late grandfather, North Korea’s founding leader. Since then, Kim has been absent from state media for several extended periods of time without explanation.  FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Changrindo defensive position on the west front, in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA), Nov. 25, 2019.Kim, a frequent cigarette smoker, appears much heavier than when he took power in 2011. Last year, South Korea’s spy agency reported Kim weighed over 136 kilograms.  Rumors about Kim’s health also circulated in 2014, when he was absent from public view for several weeks. He eventually resurfaced using a cane; state media cryptically said he had experienced “discomfort,” but did not elaborate. Kim is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea. His father, Kim Jong Il, died of a heart attack in 2011 at the age of 69. Although his death was unexpected, he had appeared sickly at the end of his life.  “There is a big difference between how his dad looked in his final years — clearly shrunken in a not good, ill sort of way — and the new svelte Kim Jong Un. From what I’ve seen he looks better than before,” Foster-Carter said. Although media discussion about Kim’s weight often takes a light-hearted or mocking tone, his health situation is important, since he exercises authoritarian rule over a nuclear-armed country that may not have a succession plan in place. Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, appears to have gained influence in recent years, but it is not clear whether she would be a part of any succession plan.FILE – Kim Yo Jong, right, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, helps Kim sign joint statement following the summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Paekhwawon State Guesthouse in Pyongyang, Sept. 19, 2018.Earlier this month, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported that the ruling North Korean Workers’ Party recently created a de facto second-in-command position. It reported that Jo Yong Won, a close aide to Kim, appears to have been elected to the position.  
The developments come amid tough times in North Korea. Earlier this month, Kim acknowledged his country faces a “tense” food situation.  North Korea went into a severe coronavirus lockdown in January 2020, cutting off almost all contact with the outside world and even restraining trade with its economic lifeline, China. The KCTV comments about Kim’s health could be part of a domestic propaganda campaign designed to show that Kim is “tightening his belt” during hardship, says Peter Ward, a Seoul-based Korea specialist and PhD candidate at the University of Vienna. “But I doubt he lost weight because of that,” Ward added. “The fact that the media is talking about it means the authorities understand it’s a major story inside the country,” he says. “And they want the people to speak in specific ways about it. Call it the North Korean version of message discipline, if you will.”  
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Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III was buried Saturday with thousands lining the streets of Manila to remember him for standing up to China in bitter territorial disputes, striking a peace deal with Muslim guerrillas and defending democracy in the Southeast Asian nation where his parents helped topple a dictator.Aquino died Thursday at age 61 of kidney disease arising from diabetes following a long public absence, after his single six-year term ended in 2016. Family and friends sang a patriotic song after a silver urn with Aquino’s remains was placed beside the tomb of his mother, former President Corazon Aquino. Military honors included a 21-gun salute at the private cemetery.Aquino’s family did not want him or his parents buried at the national Heroes’ Cemetery, where past presidents and top officials had been laid to rest, including dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino’s mother and his assassinated father, an anti-Marcos opposition senator, helped lead a resistance that sparked a 1986 army-backed “people power” revolt, which ousted Marcos.”In his journey beyond, his two heroic parents will be there to embrace him,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas said during Mass.Villegas praised Aquino for living up to an image of a humble and incorruptible politician who detested the trappings of power. Fighting back tears, Villegas said he envied Aquino because he was now in a place “where God’s commandments are no longer transgressed and God’s name is no longer blasphemed, where vulgarity and brutality and terror are vanquished by compassion.”The remarks, broadcast live by TV networks, were an oblique criticism of the current populist president, Rodrigo Duterte, whose brash style, expletive-laced rhetoric and tirades against the country’s dominant church stood in sharp contrast to Aquino. Church leaders have criticized Aquino’s successor for a brutal crackdown on illegal drugs that has killed thousands of petty suspects and alarmed Western governments and human rights watchdogs.Although Duterte has publicly ridiculed the opposition Aquino was associated with, he called for the outpouring of sympathy for Aquino to be turned into an “opportunity to unite in prayer and set aside our differences.””His memory and his family’s legacy of offering their lives for the cause of democracy will forever remain etched in our hearts,” Duterte said.After Mass, Aquino’s urn was carried in a convoy to the cemetery with thousands of people lining roadsides and taking pictures. Some wore yellow clothing or ribbons, the color associated with the Aquino-led political opposition.”We’re bidding goodbye, and want to say thank you to a decent man who became president,” said one supporter, Teddy Lopez, who waited for the convoy outside the cemetery. “We were respected by the whole world during his time.”President Joe Biden called Aquino a “valued friend and partner to the United States” who served his country “with integrity and selfless dedication.”Ballsy Aquino-Cruz holds the urn of her brother former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III before he is placed on the tomb on June 26, 2021 at a memorial park in suburban Paranaque city, Philippines.Aquino, whose family spent years in U.S. exile during Marcos’ rule, had turbulent ties with China as president.After Beijing sent ships to occupy a shoal off the Philippine coast, Aquino authorized the filing in 2013 of a complaint that questioned the validity of China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea before an international arbitration tribunal. The Philippines largely won. But China refused to join in the arbitration and dismissed the tribunal’s 2016 ruling.”There are those who thought the rule of law did not apply to great powers. He rejected that view and proved them wrong,” said former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, who served under Aquino.Del Rosario, with Aquino’s approval, led efforts to bring the country’s disputes with China to international arbitration. Aquino’s challenge to the rising superpower was praised by Western and Asian governments but plunged relations with Beijing to an all-time low.At home, one of Aquino’s major successes was the signing of a 2014 peace deal with the largest Muslim separatist rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, that eased decades of fighting in the country’s south.Teresita Deles, who served as Aquino’s peace adviser, said the pact prevented the rebels, who are now helping administer a Muslim autonomous region, from pressing on with an insurgency at a time when the Islamic State group was trying to gain a foothold in Southeast Asia.Philippine military officers and honor guards, together with family members, march alongside the carriage carrying the urn of the late president Benigno Aquino during the inurnment at a memorial park in Manila on June 26, 2021.”It changed the whole landscape of their lives. The children’s schooling has not been interrupted for seven years and the fields are planted again,” Deles told The Associated Press.But while Aquino moved against corruption — detaining his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and three powerful senators — and initiated anti-poverty programs, the deep-seated inequalities and weak institutions in the Philippines remained too daunting. Arroyo was eventually cleared of corruption charges because of insufficient evidence.Opponents pounded on missteps, although Aquino left office with high approval ratings. Philippine presidents are limited to a single term.Aquino campaigned against Duterte in 2016, warning that a looming dictator would set back the democratic and economic momentum achieved in his own term. He also warned of potential dangers if Marcos’ namesake and son, who was then separately running for the vice presidency, would triumph. He criticized Marcos’ son for refusing to acknowledge that his dictator-father “did the country wrong.”Aquino then warned that backers of the late dictator were trying to rewrite the horrors of the martial law era under Marcos.”Let me also remind you that the dictatorship has many faces,” Aquino said in February 2016. “There are other personalities who want to reinstate all these to deprive the people of the right processes and put in the hands of one man the power to determine what is right and what is wrong, and who is innocent and who is guilty.”Duterte won with a large margin, and later allowed Marcos to be buried with military honors at the the Heroes’ Cemetery. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch called Duterte’s first year in office, when he launched his bloody anti-drug crackdown, a “human rights calamity.”Marcos’ son lost the vice presidential race by a slim margin, and is reportedly considering a run for the same office, or even the top post, when Duterte’s term ends next year.
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For the second time in as many days, anti-government protesters took to the streets of Bangkok demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-O-Cha.Saturday’s demonstrations came two days after protesters gathered by the thousands outside parliament and Cabinet offices to mark 89th anniversary of Thailand’s transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one. Thursday’s gatherings were the first anti-government rallies since the Southeast Asian country’s most drastic resurgence of COVID-19 infections triggered lockdowns in April.Hundreds turned out again Saturday in violation of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions to apply more pressure on the government.“We would like to get a new government to control Thailand. We need to change the constitution first and then we change all the system. We have to rewrite again,” said Witsaruj, 34, who told VOA he regularly participates in the demonstrations. “I think the power of the people [can] make the change. If we have a meaningful vote, then we can restart Thailand. Democracy is the power of the people.”Police stand in line blocking road access during anti-government protests in Bangkok, Thailand, June 26, 2021. (Tommy Walker/VOA)Pandemic procedures criticizedProtesters have voiced their disapproval of the government’s handling of the pandemic and vaccine rollout. Some were seen carrying signs criticizing the Chinese-made Sinovac as hundreds of police were on standby, barricading roads to government offices.By evening, longtime political activist Jatuporn Prompan led his Thai Mai Thon (Impatient Thais) camp toward Cabinet offices before rerouting in the face of street blockades, shortly after which the enthusiastic but peaceful protesters settled outside Thailand’s Rajamangala University campus. Speakers, addressing crowds on makeshift podiums, took turns criticizing the administration, with some labeling Prayuth a dictator.A Thai police officer stands beside a barricade during anti-government protests in Bangkok, Thailand, June 26, 2021. (Tommy Walker/VOA)The rally ended a few minutes past 10 p.m. local time with no major incident, but Jatuporn called for more rallies with bigger numbers next week.Kan Sangtong, who works as an observer with Amnesty International Thailand & iLaw as part of a human rights project, told VOA that he expected similar protests.“I think it will be peaceful,” he said. “They cannot be aggressive, because they know they don’t win. But they just have the motivation and the heart.”Unpopular figurePrayuth Chan-O-Cha, formerly the leader of the Thai military, seized power in the 2014 coup. He was elected prime minister in 2019 in disputed elections. He has the backing of the monarchy and a Senate he helped appoint but remains unpopular with many young Thais.The Thai protests erupted in August last year, directly criticizing the role of the monarchy and of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and demanding a reduction in their political powers.Thousands took to the streets, sometimes leading to violence and skirmishes between protesters and riot police, with authorities deploying tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds.This week’s protests, however, were a signal to Thai leaders that the youth-led movement for political reforms hasn’t stalled despite numerous charges against many of its activist leaders, including allegations of defamation of the monarchy. Thailand lèse-majesté law carries up to 15 years in prison per conviction for insulting or defaming prominent royals.Activists threaten to drive toward riot police during heated protests outside the Government House, Bangkok, Thailand, June 26, 2021. (Tommy Walker/VOA)In an attempt to fix economic woes, Prayuth recently vowed in a televised broadcast to reopen the country to tourism, which constitutes an estimated 12% of the nation’s gross domestic product, by October.Despite the economy being hit hard in 2020, the International Monetary Fund projects Thailand’s economy to grow by 2.6% in 2021. A partial reopening of Thailand’s tourism sector will begin next week, as Phuket, the popular island hot spot, is set to welcome fully vaccinated international visitors starting July 1.Thailand has documented more than 236,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 1,800 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which says more than 8.9 million vaccination doses have been administered within its borders.This report includes information from Reuters.
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A U.N. investigator described an “extremely concerning” pattern of sexual violence by Myanmar’s military in a statement Friday.Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, identified a swath of human rights violations by the ruling political power, which seized control of the country in February.Patten focused particularly on reports of sexual violence against women in detention centers. In her statement, Patten called for not only an immediate end to violence against women but also the ability to independently investigate reports of sexual violence in the country.FILE – Pramila Patten in 2017.“The patterns of sexual violence perpetrated by the Tatmadaw against women from ethnic and religious minority groups, as well as against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, as documented by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, is extremely concerning,” the statement said.The Myanmar military, also known as the Tatmadaw, staged a coup in February, overtaking the recently elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy.The Tatmadaw, invoking an article from the country’s 2008 constitution, declared a one-year state of emergency, overtaking all three branches of government.There have since been reports that the military has killed at least 860 people and detained more than 4,800 activists, journalists and opponents of the coup.In advocating for the prevention of violence against women, Patten pointed out that the Tatmadaw was in direct violation of a 2018 agreement between the then-government of Myanmar and the U.N. that promised to address and prevent sexual violence during conflict.Patten added that the current political turmoil has disrupted access to health and social services, as many organizations have shut down to avoid being attacked or looted.“In the midst of this civilian suffering, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that appropriate multisectoral services are available to all civilians including non-discriminatory care for survivors of sexual violence, and unimpeded access for humanitarian actors to provide essential lifesaving services,” she said.Patten ended her statement by applauding the work of the women’s rights organizations in the country that are helping citizens despite the increasingly volatile situation.
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Cui Tiankai, the 69-year-old career diplomat who has served as China’s ambassador to the United States since April 2013, is getting ready to go home.American analysts mostly give Cui high marks for how he represented his country — or at least its government — during his eight-year tenure. But they also question the degree to which he or any Chinese diplomat has been able to influence decision-making in Beijing.Winston Lord, former U.S. ambassador to China, and Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, are among those who say Cui has been a highly effective diplomat.“Ambassador Cui Tiankai has done an outstanding job in my view, during a very difficult period,” Lord said in a phone interview from his home in New York.Skilled, respectedThe fact that Cui remained in his post for so long attests to his skill and the respect in which he is held, Lord said. “He’s been very strong in defending Chinese interests, of course, but he’s always done so with a sense of trying to encourage some sort of dialogue, even though we’ve got some sharp disagreements.”Glaser attended some events Cui hosted at the Chinese Embassy. When asked about the senior diplomat’s mannerisms at those functions, she recalled that “sometimes he was gracious, sometimes he used tougher language when that was appropriate — he’s a very good diplomat, and he adjusts his messaging based on the prevailing situation in the U.S.-China relationship.”FILE – China’s Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai walks past the closed-door morning session of U.S.-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, March 19, 2021.When Cui took up his post, FILE – Attendees masked to curb the spread of the coronavirus sit near a screen showing China’s Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai at the Lanting Forum on improving China-U.S. relations, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, Feb. 22, 2021.The Chinese ambassadors, meanwhile, “probably are going to have a more difficult time,” he said. “It’s a lot more difficult politically for the [Chinese] ambassador here to go back to Beijing and say, ‘Look, you’re making a mistake,’ or that the American point of view is not unreasonable.”David Stilwell, who served as the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from June 2019 until January, said Cui’s dilemma has its roots in the political culture in Beijing.“I feel sorry for Ambassador Cui; he’s been between a rock and a hard place for the last eight years,” Stilwell said in a phone interview from Honolulu. “As the man on the ground in D.C., he was responsible for telling Beijing what to expect from the new administration.” Stilwell was referring to hardened stance towards the Chinese government adopted by the administration led by President Donald Trump.Criticism ‘not tolerated’However, “suggesting that General Secretary Xi [Jinping] needed to change course, to compromise, would be tantamount to criticism,” Stilwell continued. “In the cult of personality that surrounds Xi Jinping, criticism is not tolerated.”Stilwell said that he imagined “Cui saw the train wreck that was coming but couldn’t do anything to stop it, nor could he get out of the way.” By “train wreck,” Stilwell said he was referring to the perception in Beijing of the drastic downturn in bilateral relations.“From where I sat, it was long overdue course correction,” he said.
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China on Friday promoted Hong Kong’s top security official to the territory’s No. 2 spot as Beijing looks to the government of the Asian financial hub to clamp down on free speech and political opponents to restore stability following anti-government protests.  
Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Secretary for Security John Lee would replace Matthew Cheung as the city’s chief secretary, while police chief Chris Tang would take over Lee’s role. Raymond Siu Chak-yee, Tang’s deputy, will be the new head of the police force.  
Hong Kong’s government has long been lauded for its professionalism and efficiency, but its image has been battered in recent years by its banning and suppression of pro-democracy protests and its hard-line enforcement of Beijing’s security policies. The U.S. and other Western democracies have imposed visa bans and other sanctions on Lam, Lee and other members of the administration.  
Violent clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators in 2019 prompted the central government to adopt a firm line against political concessions, a policy seen through by Lam, Lee, Tang and Siu, who made restoring public order their top priority.  
“They have had distinguished performance in the government over the years and possess proven leadership skills,” Lam said of those promoted. “I am confident that they are competent for their new posts and would rise to the challenges in serving the community.”  
Cheung, the former No. 2, will be retiring from government service.  
The leadership changes come a year after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the former British colony and one day after Hong Kong’s last remaining pro-democracy newspaper, the Apple Daily, published its final edition.
Police froze $2.3 million of the newspaper’s assets, searched its office and arrested five top editors and executives last week, accusing them of foreign collusion to endanger national security. Its founder, Jimmy Lai, is facing charges under the national security law of foreign collusion and is currently serving a prison sentence for involvement in the 2019 pro-democracy protest movement.  
On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden said it was a “sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” and accused Beijing of having “insisted on wielding its power to suppress independent media and silence dissenting views.”  
“People in Hong Kong have the right to freedom of the press. Instead, Beijing is denying basic liberties and assaulting Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic institutions and processes, inconsistent with its international obligations,” Biden said in a statement on the White House website.  
Apple Daily continues to be published online in Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China claims as its own territory.  
Beijing promised Hong Kong could maintain its civil liberties for 50 years after the former British colony was handed over to Chinese rule in 1997, but has essentially abandoned that commitment to impose total political control and end what it sees as undue foreign influence on the semi-autonomous city’s institutions.  
China effectively ended multiparty democracy in Hong Kong by having the ceremonial Chinese legislature in Beijing impose the national security law without debate or a vote in the city’s Legislative Council. It then moved to pack the Legislative Council with Beijing loyalists while radically reducing the proportion of legislators directly elected by voters.  
Opposition legislators earlier resigned as a group after four colleagues were barred on national security grounds.  
In recent months, police have arrested most of the city’s pro-democracy activists. Most are still in police custody, while others have sought asylum abroad, under threat from Lam’s administration for past statements and actions seen as disloyal to China or in violation of Hong Kong law as it now stands.  
Despite the overwhelming emphasis on security, Lam told reporters that the role of the chief secretary in helping oversee the city’s daily administration, including dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, had not changed.
Yet she appeared to acknowledge Beijing’s increasingly assertive role in managing the city’s affairs and the central government’s demand for absolute loyalty from Hong Kong officials and members of the Legislative Council.  
“Now today as chief executive, I am responsible not only to Hong Kong but also to the central government, performing national duties, particularly in safeguarding national security,” Lam told reporters. “So for people with commitment, integrity, leadership and spirit to serve the nation and Hong Kong … we will put in our best.”  
China has dismissed foreign sanctions and criticism as interference in its internal affairs, and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Friday defended the national security law as focused on “cracking down on a small group of anti-China elements in Hong Kong who have seriously endangered national security, and which protects the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the vast majority of Hong Kong residents in accordance with the law, including freedom of the press.”  
“Since the enforcement of the Hong Kong national security law, Hong Kong society has returned to stability, the rule of law and justice has been upheld, and the legal rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents and foreign citizens have been better protected in a safer environment,” Zhao said at a daily briefing.  
“Accusing China of suppressing press freedom just because the organization involved in the case is a news outlet and the individuals punished are working in the field of journalism is an attempt to confuse the public out of ulterior motives,” Zhao said.  
“The U.S. should respect the facts, stop using excuses of any form to obstruct law enforcement in (Hong Kong), stop shielding suspects and interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way,” he said.
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China’s government on Friday criticized U.S. curbs on imports of solar panel materials that might be made with forced labor as an attack on its development and said Beijing will protect Chinese companies but gave no details of possible retaliation.
The U.S. customs agency said Thursday it will block imports of polysilicon from Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., which might use forced labor as part of a Beijing campaign against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region in the northwest. Imports from six other Chinese suppliers of raw materials and components for solar panels also are to be restricted.  
Washington is using “human rights as a disguise” to “suppress the industrial development of Xinjiang,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian.
“The United States doesn’t care at all about the Xinjiang people,” Zhao said. “Their real plots and sinister intentions are to mess up Xinjiang to contain China.”
Chinese officials reject accusations of forced labor and other abuses against predominantly Muslim groups in Xinjiang. They say detention camps in which as many as 1 million people are held are for job training and to combat radicalism.
The U.S. move is a potential hurdle for President Joe Biden’s ambition to promote solar power. Hoshine is one of the biggest global suppliers of polysilicon, a material used to make solar panels.
Zhao said Beijing will “take all necessary measures” to protect its companies but gave no details. Chinese spokespeople have made similar comments in response to earlier U.S. trade sanctions, usually followed by no official action.  
The U.S. customs agency said an investigation found evidence that workers in the Xinjiang polysilicon industry were intimidated and threatened and their movement restricted.  
Direct imports from Hoshine into the United States over the past 2 1/2 years totaled about $6 million while finished goods that include material from the company were about $150 million, according to the U.S. government.
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Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted Friday, releasing plumes of ash high into the air and sending streams of lava with searing gas clouds flowing down its slopes. No casualties were reported.Clouds of hot ash shot 1,000 meters into the sky and an avalanche of lava and searing gas spilled down Mount Merapi’s trembling slopes up to 3 kilometers at least six times since the morning as the volcano groaned and rumbled, said Hanik Humaida, the head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center.A series of strong pyroclastic flows were released from the actively growing lava dome in the inner summit crater of the 2,968-meter-high volcano, Humaida said.Pyroclastic flow is a volcanic phenomenon includes turbulent and hot avalanches of hot lava rocks, ash and volcanic gasses mixed together.She described the volcano’s lava dome as growing rapidly, causing hot lava and gas clouds to flow down its slopes. Parts of the lava dome were collapsing, sending rocks and ash flowing down the southwest flank of the volcano.Ash covered several villages and nearby towns, she said.Mount Merapi has seen increased volcanic activity in recent weeks and ash plumes extended about 1.8 kilometers to the southwest of the volcano before dawn, Humaida said.Indonesia’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center did not raise Merapi’s alert status, which already was at the second-highest of four levels since it began erupting last November.Villagers living on Merapi’s fertile slopes are advised to stay 5 kilometers from the crater’s mouth and should be aware of the peril of lava, the agency said.The volcano is on densely populated Java island near the ancient city of Yogyakarta. It is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds recently.Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people.Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the ocean.
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The first national study of its kind has found “consistent links” between racism and poor mental and physical health of Aboriginal Australians. The study has found that discrimination is associated with elevated rates of depression, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.This is the first time Australian researchers have found a connection between discrimination and health.  Racism has been linked to higher rates of depression, heart disease and diabetes in Indigenous communities.Almost 60% of respondents to the Australian National University study said they have faced prejudice in their everyday lives. It corrodes self-belief and their “cultural wellbeing,” the study said.Alcohol dependence is another visible symptom of racism, according to the academics.They analyzed data from more than 8,000 Indigenous Australians between 2018 and 2020.One of the authors, associate professor Raymond Lovett, said the impact of discrimination on health is profound.“If people experienced even a small amount of discrimination and racism, then we saw a very high reporting of those poorer outcomes,” he said. “And then, when we looked at the really severe end about experiencing a lot of this kind of discrimination, those outcomes were multiplied even further, which tells us that, you know, the more you experience the more of an impact it has.”Life expectancy for Aboriginal Australians is about eight years less than non-Indigenous people. Rates of unemployment and imprisonment are also disproportionately high.Campaigners also claim racism is one reason why large numbers of Aboriginal children are removed from their families by child protection officials.  Reports have said they are almost 10 times more likely to be taken into state care than nonAboriginal children.Indigenous activist Ray Minniecon said parents are invariably bereft when judges order their children be taken away.“The hardest and most harrowing thing that you can feel is, you know, when our mothers and fathers come out of that particular court and then their kids are gone and they cannot get them back, and they have got no power,” he said. “They are just powerless, and they are just sitting in the streets there on the gutter and we just can sit there and cry with them and that is all we can do.”The Australian government has said there have been “heartening improvements” in “key areas” of First Nation health and education, but it has acknowledged that much more needs to be done.Australia’s original inhabitants make up about 3% of Australia’s population and have a history dating back an estimated 65,000 years.
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Workers and residents in Sydney were ordered to stay home for a week on Friday, as authorities locked down several central areas of Australia’s largest city to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.Sixty-five COVID-19 cases have been reported so far in the flare-up linked to a limousine driver infected about two weeks ago when he transported an international flight crew from Sydney airport to a quarantine hotel.But authorities have since identified scores of potential infection sites visited by thousands of people across central Sydney, including the city’s main business district.Authorities have been alarmed by instances of people passing on the virus during fleeting encounters in shops and then quickly infecting close family contacts.Premier Gladys Berejiklian of New South Wales state, which includes Sydney, called it the “scariest period” since the pandemic broke out more than a year ago.On Friday, she ordered anyone who lived or worked in four central Sydney neighborhoods to stay home for at least a week, only venturing out to purchase essential goods, obtain medical care, exercise or if they are unable to work from home.The restrictions included central business district workers over fears that commuters were potentially spreading the virus into other parts of the city, Berejiklian said.”We’ve done better than expected in terms of contact tracing and getting on top of all those links,” she said.”But what this does is make sure that we haven’t missed any chains of community transmission.”An earlier ban on Sydneysiders leaving the city was also extended until next Friday, as traces of the virus were detected in sewage in the far-flung outback town of Bourke, about nine hours drive northwest of Sydney.It was a dramatic development for a city that had returned to relative normality after months of recording very few local cases.Australia Medical Association President Omar Khorshid chided New South Wales authorities for not taking tougher action, including locking down the entire Sydney metropolitan region, home to some 5 million people.”The Delta virus is different; it is being transmitted far more easily,” Khorshid told media in Canberra. “Sydney has not faced this before.”Korshid warned that although the economic impact of a lockdown was hard, a wider outbreak could be “catastrophic” for the whole country.It is the latest in a string of snap “circuit-breaker” lockdowns across major cities around Australia, with most cases linked to returning travelers held in hotel quarantine.Australia has been among the world’s most successful countries in containing COVID-19, with more than 30,000 cases and 910 deaths in a population of about 25 million.
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A fire swept through a martial arts school in central China early Friday, killing 18 people and injuring 16, authorities said.The fire has been extinguished, and police have detained the person in charge of the school.Henan provincial and Shangqiu city authorities have gone to the scene to start an investigation. Authorities have yet to release details on the victims.Four people were severely injured and 12 have light injuries, according to the short statement from authorities in the city of Shangqiu, which oversees Zhecheng county in Henan, where the fire occurred. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden called the shuttering of Hong Kong’s independent Apple Daily newspaper a “sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” blaming China for “intensifying repression.”“Through arrests, threats and forcing through a National Security Law that penalizes free speech, Beijing has insisted on wielding its power to suppress independent media and silence dissenting views,” Biden said in a statement.He accused Beijing of denying Hong Kong “basic liberties and assaulting Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic institutions and processes.”The parent company of the Hong Kong-based pro-democracy Apple Daily announced Wednesday that it would shut down the publication this week.The decision to close Apple Daily came nearly a week after more than 500 police officers raided the newspaper’s offices and arrested its chief editor, Ryan Law, and four other executives with the newspaper and its publisher, Next Digital. Authorities then froze $2.3 million of its assets, leaving the company unable to pay its staffers.Law and Chief Executive Officer Cheung Kim-hung have been charged with colluding with a foreign country and have been denied bail.Apple Daily and its publisher, Next Digital founder and owner Jimmy Lai, 73, have been the target of Hong Kong authorities since China imposed a strict national security law last June in response to the massive and sometimes violent anti-government protests in 2019.The newspaper’s offices were raided last August after Lai was arrested at his house on suspicion of foreign collusion.Lai is serving a 14-month prison sentence for taking part in separate unauthorized assemblies in 2019. His assets in Next Digital were frozen by the government last month.Hong Kong authorities have cited dozens of articles published by Apple Daily it says violated the security law, which targets anyone authorities suspect of carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces.
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