concern – Radio Free

ADL chief: Max Blumenthal is major source of concern

The Grayzone — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 15:50:52 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

CPJ, partners express concern over growing deterioration of press freedom in El Salvador

CPJ Staff — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:15:23 +0000

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 16 other international organizations in a joint statement Wednesday warning about the swift deterioration in press freedom in El Salvador, after at least 40 journalists have had to leave the country due to a sustained pattern of harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary restrictions on their work.

The Salvadoran Journalists Association (APES) has raised concerns of alleged watchlists and threats of arrest targeting journalists and human rights defenders.

The document calls on the Salvadoran government to “guarantee the physical integrity and freedom of all journalists and immediately cease any form of persecution, surveillance, or intimidation.”

Read the full statement in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Tibetans express concern about gutting of RFA, but say, ‘We still hear you’

RFA Tibetan — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:07:31 +0000

Celebratory Chinese media reports about the U.S. administration’s gutting of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America has sparked widespread concern among Tibetans living in Tibet who fear they will no longer have access to uncensored news in their own language, sources in the region said.

But Tibetans say they are relieved to see that Radio Free Asia is still broadcasting into the region despite the March 15 termination of Congressionally-authorized federal grants that fund the editorially independent news service.

“We still see you. We still hear you,” said one of the sources based in Tibet’s capital Lhasa on Thursday, just days after the abrupt cut to RFA’s funds forced the outlet to furlough much of its staff in its Washington headquarters.

RFA Tibetan's Instagram video Reels page.

(RFA)

Chinese media and Beijing’s army of nationalistic ‘little pink’ commentators welcomed the news about RFA and VOA, with the state-owned Beijing Daily declaring that the “beacon of freedom has collapsed” and that “U.S. hegemony will eventually perish under global condemnation.”

With the reduced staff, RFA’s nine language services -- including Tibetan, Mandarin and Uyghur -- are providing limited news updates via its website, social, and radio to regions across Asia with little or no press freedom, from North Korea and China to Cambodia and Myanmar.

“I listen and follow RFA and I am relieved to see you are still working despite the funding cut and risk of closure,” a second source based in the Tibet Autonomous Region told RFA Tibetan.

“I hope and pray that the (U.S.) administration reconsiders the decision and continues to fund your work,” the person said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Risking personal safety to listen

Under Mao Zedong, Communist Chinese forces invaded and annexed Tibet in 1950. Ever since, Beijing has maintained a tight grip on Tibetan daily life, suppressing Tibetan culture, the language and Buddhist practices while trying to assimilate Tibetans into Han Chinese culture.

In Tibet, RFA serves as a rare source of factual, timely news and information about domestic and international affairs as well as about the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in northern India, and Tibetans abroad.

Many Tibetans risk personal safety to secretly tune in to RFA and VOA and listen to these broadcasts, which the Chinese government has frequently jammed, according to former political prisoners, Tibetans, rights groups and foreign tourists.

Chinese officials have also destroyed or confiscated hundreds of ‘illegal’ satellite dishes, with seizures common across the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces.

Access to RFA Tibetan’s news website and social platforms are also blocked. However, some Tibetans use digital circumvention tools to get around China’s “Great Firewall” that censors and blocks access to many Western websites and news sources, including X, formerly known as Twitter.

Getting caught listening to RFA or VOA or sharing information with foreign media can cause Tibetans to be arrested. Some have been sentenced to several years in jail.

“Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans living in Tibet -– monks, nuns, nomads, farmers and other laypersons –- try every way possible to tune in to RFA and VOA,“ said former political prisoner Golog Jigme Gyatso, who was detained by Chinese officials several times for listening to and participating in discussions on RFA Tibetan.

“Both these news American outlets play an essential role in filling a big information gap; that is why both have always been a thorn in the side of Communist China,” he said.

A Tibetan child listens to a radio at Sera Monastery in Lhasa, Aug. 25, 2003.

(Guang Niu/Reuters)

Chinese authorities often blast music on radio frequencies used by RFA to make it difficult for listeners to hear, said Gyatso, who is currently based in Zurich, Switzerland.

They also plant informers and spies in Tibetans villages, schools and monasteries to find out who might be listening to these news programs, he said.

“And now to hear that the two news outlets that serve as such an important medium of information inside Tibet is likely coming to an abrupt end is unthinkable and heartbreaking to say the least,” Gyatso said.

In 2008, Gyatso helped make a documentary titled “Leaving Fear Behind,”which featured interviews with Tibetans in Tibet that highlighted the injustices they face under Chinese rule. He was subsequently jailed three times between 2008 and 2012 and brutally tortured by Chinese authorities before finally escaping Tibet in 2014.

‘Darkness will fall’

Other former Tibetan political prisoners and activists also expressed concerns that RFA and VOA may cease operations, saying the services provide a lifeline of information to Tibetans in their own tongue.

RFA Tibetan, for example, broadcasts news in three different dialects of Ukay, Amkay, and Khamkay.

“If these media outlets are silenced, darkness will fall upon the minds of millions who, under authoritarian oppression, have depended solely on these voices for truth, freedom, and democracy, and their hopes will be dashed,” said Jamyang Jinpa, one of the monks who disrupted a government-controlled press tour and spoke to foreign journalists during a widely publicized protest against Chinese rule in April 2008.

A banner showing Tibetan monks listening to the radio is seen at RFA headquarters in Washington, March 24, 2025.

(Charlie Dharapak/RFA)

Jinpa said he first heard on RFA’s Amdo-dialect broadcast that a group of international reporters had been invited to visit Labrang Tashikyil Monastery in Gansu province, and made preparations to protest before them.

“Over the past several decades, these two media outlets have served as bridges between Tibetans inside and outside Tibet and made indelible contributions to the Tibetan people,” he said. “This will be confirmed by time itself.”

‘Act of resistance’

RFA began its first broadcast into China in Mandarin on Sept. 29, 1996, and in Tibetan a few months later, on Dec. 2, 1996.

It later expanded to nine languages, including Tibetan, Uyghur, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao and Burmese.

“When I was in Tibet in 2008 and 2011, I would hear Radio Free Asia Tibetan language service quietly being played in people’s homes at night,” said Nick Gulotta, a New York City who traveled to Tibet in 2008 and later in 2011.

“Just listening to the news was an act of resistance and extreme personal risk,” he said. “But for Tibetans resisting occupation, listening to uncensored information in their language was everything.

“Not only are these programs a lifeline for millions living under authoritarian regimes –- there are simply no other high quality media options for Americans that disseminate news in many of the languages offered by RFA and VOA,” Gulotta said.

However, there are signs that the U.S. administration is scaling back shortwave radio transmissions. RFA has learned that some shortwave radio frequencies that had carried its programming have stopped operating in recent days.

Most of RFA’s radio broadcasts are carried by transmitters run or leased by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees U.S. government-funded broadcasters.

CTA urges lobbying

Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the democratically elected president of the Tibetan government-in-exile -- the Central Tibetan Administration -- in Dharamsala, India, said CTA is striving to ensure continued U.S. support for both RFA and VOA through collective efforts of the Washington-based Office of Tibet and International Campaign for Tibet.

The CTA has also urged the over 30 North American Tibetan associations , made up of the Tibetan communities across the United States and Canada, to advocate on behalf of RFA and VOA with their representatives, he said.

“The continuation of RFA and VOA’s Tibetan language services is not only a geopolitical necessity — it is also a moral imperative," said Tsering Passang, founder and chair of the U.K.-based Global Alliance for Tibet and Persecuted Minorities.

“These broadcasts provide a rare and vital platform for Tibetan language preservation, helping sustain a culture that the CCP has relentlessly sought to erase through colonial-style boarding schools and other assimilation tactics,” he said, using an acronym to refer to the Chinese Communist Party.

Rigzin Lhundup, a member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, recalled how when he was younger and living in Tibet, he would see Tibetans go to the terrace of their house or to the mountainside to hear the news broadcasts better.

“Now when I reflect on it, I still feel the impact of hearing the word ‘Free’ in Radio Free Asia and the line, ‘Reporting from Dharamsala, the place of His Holiness’s residence,’ which we would frequently hear in the broadcasts,” Lhundup said.

“Shutting down the two media outlets would be a huge loss to the Tibetan struggle,” he said.

Edited by Tenzin Pema and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Tibetan.

Concern US presence could run against Marshall Islands nuclear-free treaty

APR editor — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:23:34 +0000

By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist, and Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific Waves presenter/producer

Marshall Islands defence provisions could “fairly easily” be considered to run against the nuclear-free treaty that they are now a signatory to, says a veteran Pacific journalist and editor.

The South Pacific’s nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament treaty, known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, was signed in Majuro last week during the observance of Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day.

RNZ Pacific’s Marshall Islands correspondent Giff Johnson, who is also editor of the weekly newspaper Marshall Islands Journal, said many people assumed the Compact of Free Association — which gives the US military access to the island nation — was in conflict with the treaty.

However, Johnson said the signing of the treaty was only the first step.

“The US said there was no issue with the Marshall Islands signing the treaty because that does not bring the treaty into force,” he said.

“I would expect that there would not be a move to ratify the treaty soon . . . with the current situation in Washington this is going to be kicked down the road a bit.”

He said the US military routinely brought in naval vessels and planes into the Marshall Islands.

“Essentially, the US policy neither confirms nor denies the presence of nuclear weapons on board aircraft or vessels or whether they’re nuclear powered.

‘Clearly spelled out defence’
“The US is allowed to carry out its responsibility which is very clearly spelled out to defend and provide defence for the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.

“So yes, I think you could fairly easily make the case that the activity at Kwajalein and the compact’s defence provisions do run foul of the spirit of a nuclear-free treaty.”

Johnson said the US and the Marshall Islands would need to work out how it would deliver its defence and security including the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defence Test Site, where weapon systems are routinely tested on Kwajalein Atoll.

Meanwhile, the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior will be visiting the Marshall Islands next week to support the government on gathering data to support further nuclear compensation.

“What we are hoping to do is provide that independent science that currently is not in the Marshall Islands,” the organisation’s Pacific lead Shiva Gounden told RNZ Pacific Waves.

“Most of the science that happens in on the island is mostly been funded or taken control by the US government and the Marshallese people, rightly so, do not trust that data. Do not trust that sample collection.”

Top-secret lab study
The Micronesian nation experienced 67 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, resulting in an ongoing legacy of death, illness, and contamination.

In 2017, the Marshall Islands government created the National Nuclear Commission to coordinate efforts to address the impacts from testing.

Gounden said Project 4.1 — which was the top-secret medical lab study on the effects of radiation on human bodies — has caused distrust of US data.

“The Marshallese people do not trust any scientific data or science coming out from the US,” he said.

“So they have asked us to see if we can assist in gathering samples and collecting data that is independent from the US that could assist in at least giving them a clear picture of what’s happening right now in those atolls.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

‘No areas of concern’, says Cook Islands PM on NZ’s China deal fears

APR editor — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 09:55:52 +0000

By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist in Avarua, Rarotonga

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown hopes to have “an opportunity to talk” with the New Zealand government to “heal some of the rift”.

Brown returned to Avarua on Sunday afternoon (Cook Islands Time) following his week-long state visit to China, where he signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” to boost its relationship with Beijing.

Prior to signing the deal, he said that there was “no need for New Zealand to sit in the room with us” after the New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister raised concerns about the agreement.

Responding to reporters for the first time since signing the China deal, he said: “I haven’t met the New Zealand government as yet but I’m hoping that in the coming weeks we will have an opportunity to talk with them.

“Because they will be able to share in this document that we’ve signed and for themselves see where there are areas that they have concerns with.

“But I’m confident that there will be no areas of concern. And this is something that will benefit Cook Islanders and the Cook Islands people.”

He said the agreement with Beijing would be made public “very shortly”.

“I’m sure once the New Zealand government has a look at it there will be nothing for them to be concerned about.”

Not concerned over consequences
Brown said he was not concerned by any consequences the New Zealand government may impose.

The Cook Islands leader is returning to a motion of no confidence filed against his government and protests against his leadership.

“I’m confident that my statements in Parliament, and my returning comments that I will make to our people, will overcome some of the concerns that have been raised and the speculation that has been rife, particularly throughout the New Zealand media, about the purpose of this trip to China and the contents of our action plan that we’ve signed with China.”

1News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver was at the airport but was not allowed into the room where the press conference was held.

The New Zealand government wanted to see the agreement prior to Brown going to China, which did not happen.

A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Brown had a requirement to share the contents of the agreement and anything else he signed under the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration.

‘Healing some of the rift’
Brown said the difference in opinion provides an opportunity for the two governments to get together and “heal some of the rift”.

“We maintain that our relationship with New Zealand remains strong and we remain open to having conversations with the New Zealand government on issues of concern.

“They’ve raised their concerns around security in the Pacific. We’ve raised our concerns around our priorities, which is economic development for our people.”

Brown has previously said New Zealand did not consult the Cook Islands on its comprehensive strategic partnership with China in 2014, which they should have done if the Cook Islands had a requirement to do so.

He hoped people would read New Zealand’s deal along with his and show him “where the differences are that causes concern”.

Meanwhile, the leader of Cook Islands United Party, Teariki Heather, said Cook Islanders were sitting nervously with a question mark waiting for the agreement to be made public.

Cook Islands United Party leader Teariki Heather stands by one of his trucks he is preparing to take on the planned protest. Image: Caleb Fotheringham/RNZ Pacific

“That’s the problem we have now, we haven’t been disclosed or told of anything about what has been signed,” he said.

“Yes we hear about the marine seabed minerals exploration, talk about infrastructure, exchange of students and all that, but we haven’t seen what’s been signed.”

However, Heather said he was not worried about what was signed but more about the damage that it could have created with New Zealand.

Heather is responsible for filing the motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

The opposition only makes up eight seats of 24 in the Cook Islands Parliament and the motion is about showing support to New Zealand, not about toppling the government.

“It’s not about the numbers for this one, but purposely to show New Zealand, this is how far we will go if the vote of no confidence is not sort of accepted by both of the majority members, at least we’ve given the support of New Zealand.”

Heather has also been the leader for a planned planned today local time (Tuesday NZ).

“Protesters will be bringing their New Zealand passports as a badge of support for Aotearoa,” he said.

“Our relationship [with New Zealand] — we want to keep that.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Asia sends top officials to Trump inauguration amid concern over trade, security

RFA Staff — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 07:27:08 +0000

BANGKOK -- Senior representatives of the world’s second and third largest economies are attending Monday’s inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president, reflecting the importance China and Japan place on good relations with the world’s biggest economy.

Trump’s return to power for a second term raises fundamental questions in Asia, in particular the extent he will follow through on his promise to ramp up tariffs and his commitment to the security of old allies in an increasingly dangerous world.

The Trump team invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington for the inauguration, but Vice President Han Zheng is taking his place. Japan sent Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, the first time its top diplomat will be at a ceremony normally attended by its ambassador.

Xi talked with Trump in a Friday phone call and stressed that their two countries were pursuing their dreams, with both committed to a better life for their people, China’s foreign ministry said.

“President Xi expressed his readiness to secure greater progress in China-U.S. relations from a new starting point,” it added in a statement on the talks.

“Given the extensive common interests and broad space of cooperation between the two countries, China and the United States can become partners and friends, contribute to each other’s success, and advance shared prosperity for the good of the two countries and the whole world,” the ministry cited Xi as saying

While Beijing is keen to engage with Trump and talk down his threats of 60% on Chinese goods, Trump’s pre-inauguration talk of taking control of Greenland and the Panama Canal has triggered a wave of speculation in Chinese social media that he may be willing to let China take control of democratically ruled Taiwan.

In Friday’s talk with Trump, Xi repeated that the Taiwan issue was “a red line that China cannot allow to be challenged,” according to state media.

U.S. Vice President-elect JD Vance (R) meets with China's Vice President Han Zheng in Washington on Jan. 19, 2025.

(X: Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng)

China’s Vice President Han met U.S. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and business leaders, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Washington on Sunday with Han stressing “extensive common interests” despite “some disagreements and frictions,” the Chinese ministry said.

Old alliances

During his first term, Trump called for old allies Japan and South Korea to both pay more for the U.S. troops stationed in those countries, raising questions about the decades-old U.S. commitment to their security.

Both allies will be watching for signs the Trump administration will champion regional alliances, such as the trilateral agreement forged between the U.S., Japan and South Korea during the Biden administration, to counter the threat of China and North Korea.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the fact that Takeshi Iwaya would be his country’s first foreign minister to attend a U.S. presidential inauguration was a sign that the new Trump administration values its relationship with Japan.

“I would like to use this as an opportunity to firmly build a relationship of trust,” said Hayashi on Monday during a press conference. “The Japan-U.S. alliance will continue to be the cornerstone of our country’s foreign and security policy.”

He reiterated the need for an early Japan-US summit meeting.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Sunday that he was coordinating a schedule for his first summit meeting with Trump, without mentioning a timeline.

“We must speak independently and embody the national interest in terms of what role Japan will play in foreign policy, including security, economy, and Ukraine,” he said.

Japanese media have reported that Ishiba and Trump were aiming to hold a summit in the first half of February.

Korean ‘turning point’?

South Korea’s ruling People’s Party of Korea expressed its hope that the alliance with the U.S. would grow even stronger under Trump.

“I hope that this will be a new turning point for strengthening the ROK-U.S. alliance and peace on the Korean peninsula,” Kwon Sung-dong, the floor leader of the National Assembly, said in a congratulatory message to Trump on Monday, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

During his first term, Trump held three rounds of talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. While he failed to achieve any progress in persuading Kim to abandon his nuclear program and missile programs, South Korea’s spy agencies have speculated that Trump could make a small step forward if he were to meet the Korean leader again.

Japan to raise South China Sea issue with new Trump administration

North Korea conducts missile tests days before Trump takes office

South Korea is also concerned about trade and the knock-on effect of Trump ramping up U.S. tariffs against China.

Policy Committee Chairman Kim Sang-hoon expressed concern about the impact of protectionist U.S. policies, such as the imposition of universal tariffs and reciprocal tariffs, on the domestic economy.

Kim cited research by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy that South Korea’s domestic exports could decrease by up to 65 trillion South Korean won (US$45 billion) if universal tariffs and tariffs on China are imposed.

‘Adjustments’ expected

Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan acknowledged the global shift towards more protectionist and nationalistic policies, including the threat of tariffs and trade-restrictive measures by the Trump administration.

“We look forward to his inauguration and to the policies, and we will have to make the necessary adjustments even as he makes changes to his policies,” he said in an interview with Singapore media on Sunday.

He said ASEAN would have to “double down” on regional integration as well as connectivity, and make itself as competitive as possible as a trading partner and an investment destination.

“[ASEAN] cannot control the agendas of the superpowers, or indeed the larger powers, but we can, and we should focus on integrating ourselves, strengthening our economies, and our connectivity,” he said.

Balakrishnan recommended “long-term policies which are consistent, which are reliable, which are trustworthy, and to keep open engagements in an inclusive way with all the major powers – America, China, Europe, India and Japan.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Asia sends top officials to Trump inauguration amid concern over trade, security

RFA Staff — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 07:27:08 +0000

Xi talked with Trump in a Friday phone call and stressed that their two countries were pursuing their dreams, with both committed to a better life for their people, China’s foreign ministry said.

“President Xi expressed his readiness to secure greater progress in China-U.S. relations from a new starting point,” it added in a statement on the talks.

In Friday’s talk with Trump, Xi repeated that the Taiwan issue was “a red line that China cannot allow to be challenged,” according to state media.

U.S. Vice President-elect JD Vance (R) meets with China's Vice President Han Zheng in Washington on Jan. 19, 2025.

(X: Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng)

Old alliances

He reiterated the need for an early Japan-US summit meeting.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Sunday that he was coordinating a schedule for his first summit meeting with Trump, without mentioning a timeline.

“We must speak independently and embody the national interest in terms of what role Japan will play in foreign policy, including security, economy, and Ukraine,” he said.

Japanese media have reported that Ishiba and Trump were aiming to hold a summit in the first half of February.

Korean ‘turning point’?

South Korea’s ruling People’s Party of Korea expressed its hope that the alliance with the U.S. would grow even stronger under Trump.

Japan to raise South China Sea issue with new Trump administration

North Korea conducts missile tests days before Trump takes office

South Korea is also concerned about trade and the knock-on effect of Trump ramping up U.S. tariffs against China.

Policy Committee Chairman Kim Sang-hoon expressed concern about the impact of protectionist U.S. policies, such as the imposition of universal tariffs and reciprocal tariffs, on the domestic economy.

‘Adjustments’ expected

He said ASEAN would have to “double down” on regional integration as well as connectivity, and make itself as competitive as possible as a trading partner and an investment destination.

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

New Mekong dam project sparks concern in Laos and Thailand

RFA Lao — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:34:32 +0000

Plans to proceed with a benefits-and-risks review of a proposed hydropower dam on the Mekong River has sparked concern in both Laos and Thailand about the impact on communities and the ecosystem.

The US$2-billion, 12-turbine Sanakham hydropower dam will be built about 155 kilometers (100 miles) west of the Lao capital of Vientiane, and 25 km (15 miles) upstream from Sanakham district of Vientiane province, near the Thai-Lao border.

More than 62,500 people in Thailand and Laos will be forced to relocate due to rising waters, according to submitted documents.

Lao residents say they have hardly had a chance to give feedback on the project.

“I’m so concerned that we’ll have to move to another village,” a Sanakham district resident told Radio Free Asia. “They [the government] did not clearly explain it to us at all.”

Dozens of hydropower dams have already been built on the Mekong and its tributaries, and there are plans to build scores more in the coming years. The Lao government wants to harness their power generation to boost the economy, which has been battered by soaring inflation and a weakening currency.

Electricity generated by the dam, to be built by China-owned Datang (Lao) Sanakham Hydropower Co. Ltd. and Thailand’s Gulf Energy Development Public Co. Ltd., will mainly be exported to Thailand.

Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources said on Dec. 17 that it would begin the consultation process during which Mekong River Commission member countries and other stakeholders review proposed projects to try to reach a consensus on whether or not they should proceed.

The Thai National Mekong Commission is holding four public information forums about the dam for residents living in the eight Thai provinces along the Mekong River during the coming weeks.

‘Rushed ahead’

International Rivers, a group acting to protect rivers and the communities that depend on them, said there there has been little up-to-date information publicly available about the project.

“It appears this process is being rushed ahead, with little regard for the needs of local residents to be able to make arrangements to attend the forums, let alone prepare and develop informed opinions about the project specifics,” the group said in a Dec. 21 statement.

Villagers who will be affected by the dam don’t want to move, a resident of Kenethao district in Xayaburi province said.

“They don’t want to relocate at all [because] here they have their livelihoods,” he said. “If they moved somewhere far away, what would happen to their lives? If they have no choice but to move, then they should get more compensation.”

Phonepaseuth Phouliphanh, secretary general of the Lao National Mekong Committee, told Radio Free Asia that the project developer will take into consideration concerns raised about the dam.

Laos pushes ahead with large dam projects, despite uncertainty of power purchases

Thailand threatens to reject electricity from Laos’ Sanakham Dam over environmental and security concerns

Thai NGOs urge government not to buy power from Sanakham Dam in Laos

“All project developments have both good and bad impacts which we cannot avoid,” he told Radio Free Asia. “We have done research to ensure the impact is as little as possible.”

After hearing the concerns from people in areas to be affected by the dam, the Lao government or the project developer will review and correct issues that may occur, he added.

Thai concerns

Meanwhile, some Thai residents and advocacy groups also oppose the construction of the dam.

Channarong Wongla, a member of the Chiang Khan Conservation Group and Local Fisheries Group in Chiang Khan, a district in Thailand that will be affected by the dam, said other hydropower projects have already altered water routes and islands and caused erosion.

With hydropower projects in the past, including Laos’ Xayaburi Dam, developers moved ahead with their projects regardless of the concerns raised by residents, he told International Rivers.

“Most importantly, for the Sanakham Dam project, the [Thai] ombudsman and the National Human Rights Commission have already provided a clear basis for a more precautionary approach recognizing the serious impacts on local people and ecosystems,” he was quoted as saying.

A report by the ombudsman said there “was still a serious lack of information on the transboundary impacts of the dam project and that clear commitments of accountability are required from both the developers and government agencies in Thailand,” he said.

Construction of the Sanakham Dam was expected to begin in 2020, but was put on hold when government officials from Thailand’s National Mekong Commission raised questions about the impacts of the project and called for comprehensive technical studies on its environmental, social and transboundary effects, according to International Rivers.

The “snap decision” to schedule expedited public information sessions for the Sanakham Dam marked a distinct shift in the Thai government’s approach to the project, the group said.

Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

China-linked hackers spark global concern| Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 21:46:29 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

Preventable Death

T.P. Wilkinson — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 17:36:38 +0000

We should be clear about one thing. Death is not preventable. In fact it is assured. Even David Rockefeller, third generation patriarch of the gangster family on the Hudson, bit the dust at 101 in 2017. There may be some of his kind with ambitions of greater longevity but Daoist immortality has so far escaped them. However we may find that the improvements rendered notorious by Christiaan Barnard’s surgical experiments may reach a level to satisfy the most Methuselahaic of our ruling oligarchy. Perhaps some of these ancients are still around us nostalgically forcing the world back to the century in which they were born. Meanwhile the rest of us expire after shelf lives between 60 and 90 years.

In 1946, Simone de Beauvoir published a fine, little novel called All Men are Mortal (Tous les hommes sont mortels). The hero of her fable, Raimon Fosca, is a loyal patriot of his Italian city-state who desperate for a means to lift a deadly siege accepts a potion from a man who says it will give immortality. At first he is sceptical, suspecting the vial contains poison. When a mouse on whom he has tested it recovers from a mortal blow, Fosca is convinced. Yet he asks why the man has not taken it himself. He tells Fosca that he just could not dare. Fosca dismisses the man’s cowardice, and after drinking all the potion escapes the city. He is able to lift the siege and becomes a hero to his home city. The story continues to relate Fosca’s adventures.

The book does not begin in the castle of the besieged Italian city. It opens with a group of holidaymakers in the countryside. One of whom is a successful actress of great ambition named Regine. She notices in the course of those proverbially long August vacation seasons in France that on the terrace of a nearby house lies a man in a chaise longe, day and night with no sign of moving. Tired of watching this scene from the house where she is staying, she goes to the house and manages to reach the man she has been watching for days. Her opening question is what does the man do and why does he lie in this position, on the terrace in a chaise longe apparently every day. She explains how much she has to do to promote her acting career and how surely a man of his age—he appears somewhere in his late thirties or early 40s—must have great plans and potential.

He replies that he has no need to do anything else. In fact, doing anything else is pointless. Regine cannot understand how doing anything could be pointless. Fosca then tells his life story, one spanning roughly five hundred years. Fosca is a patrician and his newly won immortality not only permitted him to save his city but to perform incredible feats for a succession of princes, monarchs and emperors. In each context he offered his services to the potentate. Each time he fell in love. However, he never grew old. His patrons died. Their empires withered. His lovers died as did his children. He survived. After the recitation of all these accomplishments he explains to Regine that there is no point in anything he has done. His greatest accomplishments all collapsed. He survived everyone he ever loved. In the end, his message to Regine is that immortality is a curse. When all is said and done, no one will survive on the planet except him and the mouse he fed the same potion.

Fosca abandons every form of activity because his immortality invests everything with indifference. On the other hand, he notices the passion and the importance attached to everything by those whose life is finite—whether or not they are aware of death all the time. He in turn cannot imagine anything surviving him. At the end of the story, Regine is overwhelmed and unable to contemplate the consequences of the immortality Fosca describes.

The Western pursuit of immortality is also an obsession with the power exercised over life and its conditions. The immortal—whether literally or fictively imagined—do not understand present value since they imagine that in their world without death nothing else is eternal.

On 26 July 2024, it was reported by UN News that the fascist parastatal, World Health Organization, announced that more than a million doses of a polio vaccine was being sent to Gaza “after the discovery of the highly infectious disease in sewage samples”. According to the press report, the corrupt former Ethiopian government minister, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, appointed as director general of the pharmaments consortium dba as a United Nations agency said although no cases of polio had been recorded, it was “just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected.” Dr Ayadil Saparbekov, named as “team lead for health emergencies at WHO in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, was to have warned that “the spread of polio and other communicable disease could lead to more people dying of preventable illness than from war-related injuries—currently 39,000, according to local health authorities.” Allegedly vaccine-derived poliovirus type two had been identified in sewage samples taken from cities bombarded by the IDF, the terrorist forces of the occupying regime in Tel Aviv.

On 26 August 2024, UN News reported that 1.2 million doses of vital polio vaccines had arrived in besieged Gaza, Palestine. “More than 640,000 children are targeted to receive the polio type two (nOPV) vaccines”, according to UNICEF sources quoted in the press report. The occupying and besieging regime in Tel Aviv dba the State of Israel announced through its agency COGAT that vaccine shipments had arrived in Gaza and that the vaccination campaign would be conducted in coordination with its combined terror forces as part of their “routine” humanitarian activity.

In a century of cynicism and public amnesia, even the language used by those engaged in this operation—which ought to induce moral outrage—scarcely elicits curiosity. Naturally there are the usual suspects censored, ignored and/or maligned, i.e., the people who have been opposed to the permanent occupation and siege of Palestine by the settler-colonial entity in Tel Aviv combined with those who have been monitoring the belligerence of the pharmaments industry, who have objected, not to meaningful healthcare measures but to the fact that this WHO operation is anything but meaningful healthcare, let alone humanitarian. The criticisms deserve to be summarized because together they indicate the type and scope of full-spectrum warfare against the majority of humanity that has been intensifying as we speak.

The most obvious criticism asks how is it possible that the Tel Aviv regime and its terrorist forces are willing to permit a campaign for polio vaccination of Palestinian children while multiple eyewitness reports testify to those forces targeting children deliberately with lethal lead vaccinations, i.e. shooting them dead? This apparent incoherence is obfuscated mainly by the method of segregated reporting characteristic of most journalistic practice. That is the WHO actions and the operations on the ground are described in texts, broadcasts, and other media separately from whatever reports are filed about the assassinations, bombing and other killing activities by Tel Aviv’s terrorists. This results partly from intentional deception but also from the organisation of work in the industry, where subject matter treated by strictly separate categories. Often those “beats” are divided to match the underlying product or ideological marketing segment to be served. To the extent the incoherence cannot be ignored, the siege operations are described as were they natural catastrophes. Famine and disease are labelled serious risks arising from the destruction of infrastructure and the inability to deliver food to the inhabitants. However the fact that siege is not a condition of nature and therefore its consequences are not “acts of god” is unmentioned. Quite the contrary, the assumption underlying most reporting is that whether or not Tel Aviv’s occupation and siege of Palestine is divinely inspired, god or gods have not been on the side of the besieged. The vast majority of the Gaza population comprises women, children and youth. Thus the siege is ultimately punishment of unarmed, non-combatants. These families are implicitly held responsible for the collateral dismemberment and death on the premise that they are constituents of armed units comprising adult males. To the extent they are recognised as victims, those adult male Palestinians are deemed the perpetrators. Tel Aviv’s terrorists are defending the unarmed women and children of Palestine from their wayward manhood. The paramount leader of the terrorist onslaught, his lieutenants and allies all proclaim the divine righteousness with which they annihilate. It has been the duty of journalism to dilute their demonic language. For the scribbling battalions, such a vaccination campaign is a welcome theatrical performance to report. The Righteous (terrorists) deign to “pause” in their execution of god’s will in order to prevent the targeted population from becoming lame or paralysed. Could it be they are afraid the paralysed survivors will be unable to walk across the borders into permanent exile?

Another point of criticism, even less obvious but also more difficult to comprehend, is focused on the vaccine itself. If the pathogen allegedly detected itself derives from a previously introduced vaccine, then what assurance does anyone have that the vaccine brought to Gaza in August by the UN agencies are any safer or efficacious than the contaminating substances against which they are supposedly intended to work? On 27 August 2024, the UN News published official insistence that the polio vaccine is “safe and effective” (where have we heard that before?) and in the media briefing by UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric denied claims in “several news stories (that) have appeared online in Israel and the United States, quoting two Israeli scientists falsely asserting that the polio vaccine due to be used in Gaza is ‘experimental’”. Dujarric is cited as saying that “This vaccine is safe, it is effective, and it offers top quality protection. It is a vaccine globally recommended for variant type two polio virus outbreaks by the World Heath Organization.” Late journalist Claude Cockburn, father of the late Alexander and his sibling journalists, was to have observed that the time to believe the government is doing something is once they start denying it. In the decades since 2001, official denials are routine.

According to Dujarric, the vaccine was rolled out in March 2021. What a coincidence? In the midst of unveiling the “mother of all vaccines”, a new polio vaccine was released for public consumption. Where did the pharmaments industry ever get the time to create a vaccine to prevent the spread of a vaccine-induced virus while they were working at warp speed to produce the mRNA miracle-maker to combat COVID-19? Is it possible that this was just another off the back shelf product waiting for the right sales opportunity. US patent agent David Martin demonstrated with painstaking research published in the midst of the PHEIC pandemic that all the active components of the mRNA bullet and its target pathogen had been patented long before 2019 when the first flare was fired in Wuhan. When one should ask was the testing of the 2021 polio vaccine? What Dujarric actually means is that the responsible entities authorized the vaccine to be deployed which, like in the case of the mRNA bullets, ended their experimental status de jure.

Perhaps the 2021 vaccine procured in such enormous quantities are a product of another investment by misanthropic capitalist William Gates III, known as Bill Gates, dba the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) with its special polio focus. According to the foundation, their focus on polio is warranted because “despite this progress (in eliminating wild polio), several challenges remain in reaching all children with vaccines.” Interestingly enough they also report that “wild polio virus type 2 was declared eradicated in 2015, and wild poliovirus type 3 was declared eradicated in October 2019 (the month in which Event 201 was held). A reasonably literate person could be forgiven for asking, if wild polio type 2 (and type 3) have been eradicated what is the source of the polio threat now? The answer of course is polio vaccines!

For example, according to an article in New Indian Express (23 October 2019) “in 2019 at least 400 children would have developed polio after receiving the oral polio vaccine over the past five years… India has been free from wild polio since 2011, but the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has never released data on vaccine-associated polio paralysis, a rare adverse effect of OPV (oral polio vaccine) that causes infantile paralysis.” If there has been no data disclosure how can anyone know whether the adverse effect is “rare”? In the OPV given to children worldwide, Type 2 vaccine viruses were withdrawn from use in 2016, it continues to contain Type 1 and 3 strains that can cause VAPP.” The study cited highlighted a fact documented elsewhere, namely that cases of polio caused by vaccine viruses have outnumbered those of polio caused by wild polio viruses. Which according to those so credible authorities like the WHO have been eradicated. Although the WHO has benefited not only from the largesse of its quasi-owners but also from the combined forces of global mass media cartels at those owners disposal, occasionally it is impossible to conceal either the corruption (SOP) or the outright mendacity of the organization’s operatives.

In a WHO press release (6 June 2019), it was reported that the government where the WHO director-general made his reputation for integrity in public service, Ethiopia, a total of 57,193 vials of type 2 OPV (mOPV2) were destroyed under official supervision, presumably to prevent their contents entering the sewage system of Addis Ababa. “According to the Global Action Plan Version III (GAP III) guidelines, type 2 polio virus containing or potentially containing materials post switch should always be thoroughly handled and destroyed using methods that can automatically inactivate the virus for minimizing the risks of infection of vulnerable population.” The OPV is a product pushed by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) another consortium, like GAVI, funded by the BMGF. Another BMGF funded activity from which the foundation has done its best to distance itself was a notorious tetanus vaccination wave in 2013 where its WHO cut-out, together with the local government vaccinated women in rural areas of reproductive age ostensibly for tetanus. It was discovered that the “vaccine” was laced with ingredients that would inhibit fertility. The otherwise Business-oriented Latin Church had not yet abandoned what one writer has called “procreationism”. Local Roman Catholics were outraged that young women would be sterilized by the State. It is no secret that the misanthropic capitalists in Seattle have often articulated their preference for population reduction methods through healthcare delivery. Even the former spouse of Mr Gates, a member of the Latin Church, has been a vocal supporter of enabling women in developing countries to choose not to have children. Is it inconceivable that an oral polio vaccine might be enhanced with other biologics? Are these vaccines or blankets for the “Indians”?

Thus we can see there is not only apparent incoherence between the supposed humanitarian objective of vaccinating somewhat more than half a million children in Gaza before they are shot by terrorist snipers or buried dead or alive by bombs. Yet there is a school of thought—or a state of mind—which forbids criticism of any act which in isolation is “good” no matter the context in which it is performed. To condemn the vaccination campaign is to be heartless and inhumane. One ought to appreciate every instant of goodness or generosity even in the midst of evil.

The vaccine itself—and the obsession with vaccinating the world—can also be criticised. However, the vast majority still believe what they have been taught—that vaccines have been the miracle of modern public health. Any criticism of vaccination or the vaccine industry is dismissed or disparaged as an attack on sound public health policy. Probably most people have had some kind of vaccine in the course of their lives and see their continued survival as well as relative good health as prima facie evidence that vaccines are right, good and necessary for civilized life. Like infant baptism, it is impossible to prove or disprove its efficacy. The only authoritative testimony from the dead we have so far is a compilation of clerical forgeries and fantasies for which no further apologies are needed.

Elsewhere in my discussion of the military and intelligence origins of public health, I described the history of the government agencies today treated as world authorities on disease, cures and prevention. These agencies were not captured by corporations. They were created within the military-industrial complex and endowed with the powers of the State. They formed the template for virtually all modern public health institutions worldwide. A template is not only a tool of simplification, like any model, it is also a frame or limit placed on subsequent institutions established using it. Selling or imposing a model may not guarantee full control over the institution but it definitely eases future manipulation by the modeller. That is why the British, French and US Americans have always spent considerable sums educating foreigners in the military academies and elite universities. It is also why foreign aid includes continuous training and indoctrination events and exercises. These create and maintain the interfaces and personal relationships needed for the modeller to manipulate the models wherever they may be.

In 2020, I described the PHEIC (Public health emergency of international concern) aka as the COVID-19 pandemic as a massive worldwide counter-insurgency operation. It is an element of the global terrorism that constitutes the controlling instrument for the financial oligarchy that rules us. Many of the tactics and strategies best theorized by the French and applied by the US in the 20th century actually have precedents in the long history of Western colonization and imperialism. However, the emergence of systems theory in the 20th century and the full militarization of science and medicine through the Manhattan Project have significantly magnified the organization of terror. A cultural convergence can be identified throughout the political power elite of the West by which industrial laborers, peasants and indigenous populations were all classified as resources to be managed scientifically. The scientific-technological revolution of the 20th century was foremost the translation of enormous productive capacity—capable of satisfying most of humanities basic needs—into the capacity for annihilating the population rendered surplus by all that industrial plant (now digital).

That said, with the long-standing political and military objective of the regime in Tel Aviv the total evacuation/ elimination of the indigenous population of Palestine, there ought to be no doubt that evacuation/ elimination involves more than just “Indian removal”. For decades, the Palestinian diaspora has demanded the “right to return” to lands they were forced at gunpoint to vacate over the past century. In other settler-colonial states the major domestic task has always been population replacement and extermination of title (eliminating any heirs with claims). The US has a peculiarity that bewilders the settled “Old World” land owners. Namely the absence of binding land registers. Buying a parcel of land in the United States is not completed by registration of the purchase in a central land registry administered by the State. Instead the buyer purchases a title warranted free of encumbrances (claims against his ownership) and purchases an insurance policy that will reimburse him the purchase price should there be a successful challenge to his title in court. The tenuousness of ownership of stolen land survives in this archaic form of real estate transaction. During the so-called “pandemic” the official COVID measures were applied in Australia to evict indigenous from the lands the federal government had ostensibly recognized as theirs. The collapse of much of the SME sector worldwide during the state of COVID siege resulted in substantial redistribution of assets, including land.

During the US war against Vietnam, the CIA ran numerous programs which were eventually consolidated in what became known as the Phoenix Program. Two of those programs were interlocking pacification tactics included under the Rural Development schemes, e.g. through the Agency cut-out USAID. These were the strategic hamlet and census-grievance. Strategic hamlets were artificial villages forcibly constructed by the inhabitants of a theatre of operations in order to concentrate the population (yes, concentration camp) and isolate them from the National Liberation Front, also called the Vietcong (Vietnamese Communists). Census-grievance was a civil affairs operation. Villages were inspected, the population counted and registered, then a mirror version of the NLF alternative administration was installed. The US version was to operate according to what it thought was the structure and method of the NLF. Gene Sharp derived his colour revolution theories from analysis of these counter-insurgency strategies.

One of the most important measurements for the Phoenix system was the force strength of the NLF. The general theory was that VC were the total population minus the percentage of the population under official control. However this was not very precise. Hence the census in census grievance. The Phoenix coordinators at all levels had to aggregate numbers and estimate the military strength of the NLF throughout the country. Since all Vietnamese look alike, this meant counting everyone. Of course sometimes counting was not necessary to determine the damage done. B-52 drops wiped out all traces of villager and insurgent alike. Yet monitoring population numbers and fluctuations throughout the country was considered a fair indirect measure. First of all where populations remained stable it was safe to say the NLF was protected or protecting. Where the rural population had been decimated it was safe to say the NLF would have little means of support. Either way numbers were crucial as were the other data collected about the inhabitants through the battery of civil operations disguised as Rural Development. That data went into the Phoenix Program Information System to generate “kill lists” for target acquisition. Every detail about families was fed into this system on the assumption that somewhere in every family there was an NLF member who had to counted and neutralized.

It has been no secret that artificial intelligence tools are deployed by the Tel Aviv terrorists to produce similar assassination target lists. With the near total destruction of urban infrastructure and habitation in besieged Gaza, the essential controlling data for the counter-insurgency campaign is becoming more difficult to obtain. Whereas once the occupation health authorities were registering fatalities, about two million minus 40,000, the counter has been stuck for months now. While it is in the interest of the Tel Aviv regime to conceal the actual number of deaths from the general public, it is essential for their military operations to know how many more have to go. There is no substitute for a physical inventory—supervised by the IDF. Clearly they can no longer ask the inhabitants to come out for food and drink. However, the past four years have created a psychological condition worldwide by which vast numbers of people obviously can still be manipulated—the fear of disease.

As another author also observed, the WHO vaccination campaign targets children AND the rest of the world’s population suffering from the trauma of the COVID-19 siege and the largely forced vaccination of untold millions. I say forced because this mass vaccination was performed using either by irrationally-induced fear or repressive measures imposed by the Corporate State. The staged micro-PHEIC, following the COVID-19 handbook, enhances through redundancy the PHEIC fear strategy, also embodied in covert WHO negotiations to amend the International Health Regulations (IHR), and it provides the IDF cover for a census-type intelligence operation. Those are the minimum advantages accruing to the West’s ruling oligarchy and its franchise in Tel Aviv. However if the more sinister possibilities are considered in this suite, then the vaccination campaign is targeting children (like so many other aggressive policies today) to assure that there will in fact be few of them in the future. If the children of those who survive the annihilation of the Gaza concentration camp are rendered handicapped or even sterilized by the concoctions they have been fed, then the experimental vaccine will have proven its worth to the vaccinators of the world. The best way to prevent a death is still to prevent the inception of life in the first place.

The post Preventable Death first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by T.P. Wilkinson.

Washington solar project paused amid concern about Indigenous sites

B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 13:00:00 +0000

A company developing an industrial-scale solar panel array on Badger Mountain in Eastern Washington has paused permitting activities on the project amid concerns about impacts to Indigenous cultural sites.

The decision comes on the heels of an investigation by High Country News and ProPublica this year, which found that a land survey funded by the developer, Avangrid Renewables, had omitted more than a dozen sites of archaeological or cultural significance on the public parcel included in the project area. This survey is required by the state before it can permit the project so construction can begin.

In a June 27 letter to the state agency responsible for approving the project, Avangrid wrote that it will be pausing project planning for two to three months “while we re-evaluate public comments, including from our project landowners and affected tribal nations.”

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have objected to the Badger Mountain solar project for years, according to tribal business councilmember Karen Condon. They officially registered their opposition in May 2023, citing the foods, medicines, archaeological heritage sites, and other cultural resources found on the mountain. They were joined shortly after by the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Both tribal nations have the right to access and use public lands in their ancestral territory, which includes the state-owned parcel on Badger Mountain.

Due to concerns from tribal nations and state agencies, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, whose members are appointed by the governor, had previously ordered a redo of the cultural resources survey.

Washington State Solar Project Paused Amid Concern About Native Cultural Sites

by B. “Toastie” Oaster, High Country News — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

by B. “Toastie” Oaster, High Country News

This article was produced in partnership with High Country News, which was a member of the Local Reporting Network in 2023-24. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have objected to the Badger Mountain solar project for years, according to tribal business councilmember Karen Condon. They officially registered their opposition in May 2023, citing the foods, medicines, archaeological heritage sites and other cultural resources found on the mountain. They were joined shortly after by the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Both tribal nations have the right to access and use public lands in their ancestral territory, which includes the state-owned parcel on Badger Mountain.

“While we are pausing permitting activities, Avangrid is continuing to evaluate other elements of the Badger Mountain project,” a company spokesperson said in an email to HCN and ProPublica.

The DNR, which acts as the landlord for the parcel and evaluates the environmental and cultural impacts of projects on it, said the pause is a chance to have more discussions with tribes and potential stakeholders. “Each time people [go] out to the area, more and more archaeological sites and plant resources are seen and more concerns arise,” Louis Fortin, scientific consultation manager at the department, wrote in an email to HCN and ProPublica.

After hearing of Avangrid’s pause in operations, one of the Wenatchi-P’squosa organizers, Darnell Sam, told HCN and ProPublica he isn’t confident tribal concerns will meaningfully alter the course of development. “I still don’t trust the process,” he said, noting that the developer has already invested millions of dollars in the project. Sam is the traditional territories coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, where the Wenatchi-P’squosa people are enrolled, but said this view is his own and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office.

His mistrust, he explained, is due in part to what he’s seen his neighbors at the Yakama Nation go through. For years, the nearby Yakama Nation has opposed a pumped hydro storage project, which has also been the subject of an HCN and ProPublica investigation into how a federal agency dodged its consultation obligations, about 200 miles south of Badger Mountain. Despite tribal objections, that development has continued to advance.

“We’re not against green energy,” Sam said. “But where’s the responsible place for it to be?”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by B. “Toastie” Oaster, High Country News.

When Does Concern About Presidential Fitness Become Media Ableism?

Justine Barron — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 19:53:50 +0000

The Economist published a cover story on July 6 with the stark image of a walker, a mobility device typically used by disabled people, with the United States presidential seal on it. “No Way to Run a Country,” the headline stated. Disabled people responded angrily on social media at the implication that mobility aids are disqualifying for office, mentioning former President Franklin Roosevelt, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, all wheelchair users.

Similar visual messages previously appeared on a New Yorker cover (10/2/23) and in a Roll Call magazine political cartoon (9/6/23), both from the fall of 2023. The New Yorker cover showed President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Mitch McConnell using walkers while competing in an athletic race. The joke was that it would be absurd for such elderly people to compete in a race, but the implication was that anyone similarly disabled might not be fit to serve in political office. None of these leaders use walkers in real life.

Economist (7/6/24)

The Roll Call cartoon showed the US Capitol transformed into the “Senate Assisted Legislating Facility,” with a stairlift and elderly people with walkers. Disability advocates often write about how the media and others should avoid using disabilities and medical conditions as metaphors, as it’s usually done to negatively stigmatize them.

The Economist cover appeared during a period of intense media conversation over presidential fitness, which ramped up just after the last presidential debate on June 27, and continued until Biden withdrew from his campaign for re-election on July 21. With Biden and Trump both older than any other presidential candidates in history—and both showing many common signs of age—media have been discussing their capabilities for years.

Ability and age shouldn’t be off the table as media topics during elections, but there are ways to have these conversations without promoting harm. By not interrogating “fitness for office” as a concept, the media has contributed to a culture in which two elderly presidential candidates constantly bragged about their prowess, culminating in the surreal moment of their competitive discussion of golfing abilities during the debate.

Disability organizations have created style guides for non-ableist journalism in general. In terms of covering political campaigns, some common pitfalls to avoid include: stating or implying that all disabilities or conditions are inherent liabilities, even cognitive disabilities; diagnosing candidates without evidence; using illness or disability as a metaphor; conflating age with ability; conflating physical and cognitive health; using stigmatizing language to describe incapacities; and highlighting issues with ability or health without explaining why they are concerning.

‘Agony to watch’

New Yorker (10/2/23)

Biden’s struggles with articulating and completing his thoughts during the last debate prompted a flurry of news stories, including reporting on his tendency to forget people and events (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 6/4/24; New York Times, 7/2/24). Some of the same outlets that had previously defended him against claims of being cognitively impaired (New York, 7/31/23) were suddenly diagnosing him with possible medical conditions and doubting his ability to lead (New York, 7/7/24).

The Hill (7/20/24) called Biden’s verbal gaffes “embarrassing,” and casually quoted insiders referring to “brain farts” with scorn. “It was agony to watch a befuddled old man struggling to recall words and facts,” the Economist wrote in an editorial (7/4/24), which accompanied the cover image of the walker and called for Biden to drop out. The piece linked to another Economist piece (6/28/24) which argued that Biden had failed to prove he was “mentally fit,” and called on him to stand down and make room for a “younger standard-bearer.”

There are reasonable concerns about the age of candidates, including that our leadership doesn’t represent the majority of the country demographically and that elderly candidates may not live long. But the Economist made implicit assumptions about age and disability, including that a “younger standard-bearer” would likely be more “mentally fit.” According to scientists, slower communication and short-term memory loss are associated with aging, but some other cognitive abilities have been shown to strengthen.

What’s more, Biden’s gaffes might have been “embarrassing” to him, or “agony” for him to experience, but characterizing disability or struggle from the outside as embarrassing or unpleasant to observe is a common form of ableism. It’s reasonable to report on his mistakes without editorializing and stigmatizing language.

Neither Trump nor Biden have a record of supporting the needs of disabled people while in office, especially around the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, their disabilities or capacity issues do deserve sensitivity. By insulting memory lapses and mobility issues, even implicitly, the media insults everyone with those conditions.

It seems some part of the media’s panic around the abilities of presidential candidates has more to do with elections than with who is running the country. Biden’s re-election chances fell into jeopardy after the debate. The Washington Post (7/22/24) recently made this clear. “Trump’s age and health under renewed scrutiny after Biden’s exit,” it reported:

After weeks of intense focus on President Biden’s health and age that ended with his withdrawal from the campaign on Sunday, the script has flipped: Former president Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in history—and one who has been less transparent about his medical condition than his former opponent.

The Post makes it sound as if media are passively reporting on the next inevitable story, and not actively choosing to focus its disability-related concerns around its election concerns.

Best in show?

Roll Call (9/6/23)

The recent Washington Post article (7/22/24) on Trump’s abilities points out that he hasn’t released his medical records since he was president, when he had “had heart disease and was obese.” It also points out his “elevated genetic risk of dementia.”

With the intense focus on medical records and physical tests, the news media often writes about the bodies of presidential candidates as if they were competing for Best in Show, instead of for a job that primarily involves decision-making, leadership and communication—and for which disability might even be an asset in terms of compassion and understanding.

News outlets have reported with concern on how Biden and Trump walk, despite the fact that the majority of people in their 80s deal with mobility challenges. (Biden is 81; Trump is 78.) According to the Boston Globe (3/12/24), “Joe Biden needs to explain his slow and cautious walk.” The news article does offer his physician’s explanation of neuropathy but doesn’t seem to accept it.

The article argues that Biden’s silence about his gait was contributing to concerns that he might have an illness like dementia or Parkinson’s. The Globe seemed to take for granted that Parkinson’s would be a problem for voters and not, say, an asset. Many voters have similar conditions and might appreciate the representation. The article then mentions that Biden’s slower walking might be a sign of diminished “mental capacity,” conflating physical and cognitive issues.

In 2020, there were similar articles about Trump showing signs of unsteadiness while walking and drinking from a glass of water, with the implication that difficulties with both might undermine his fitness for office (New York Times, 6/14/20).

No privacy for presidents?

Bloomberg (7/3/24)

The Americans with Disabilities Act protects disabled people from having to disclose details about their conditions. This is because stigma and bigotry are so widespread that it’s understood such details might be handled with prejudice by employers. Media outlets undermine those principles in their lust for detailed information about the medical records of presidential candidates.

Just after the last presidential debate, Bloomberg (7/3/24) insisted in a headline that “Presidential Candidates Shouldn’t Have Health Secrets.” The article not only demanded clarity on what caused Biden’s “poor performance” in the debate, but also that candidates go through independent medical evaluations, with the full results being released to the public. Implicit in this demand is that pre-existing conditions would be liabilities. Otherwise, why would the public need to know?

“Americans are naturally curious about the health of their president, and any sign of illness or frailty gets subjected to intense public scrutiny,” a follow-up Bloomberg article (7/10/24) insisted. Are Americans curious, or are the media? The article pointed out that the US obsession with presidential health is unusual; in most countries, leaders don’t release their medical records. Still, the article went into intense detail about everything known and speculated about in terms of Biden and Trump’s health, body weight, medications and the like.

The media’s focus on the physical imperfections of presidential candidates is biased not only towards abled people, but towards white men. Women and people of color are more likely to have pre-existing medical conditions, and more likely to face stigma as a result of them. The Washington Post (7/22/24) already noted that Kamala Harris hasn’t released her medical records, or responded to questions about it.

During the 2016 campaign for presidency, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton fainted. Her doctor said she had pneumonia and was overheated. Not surprisingly, right-wing media used it as a chance to portray her as weak and unfit, but even some liberal outlets (CNN, 9/12/16), decided this was a significant incident worthy of endless commentary, speculation and demands for investigations. Fainting is something many people, especially women, experience routinely, as part of illness, heat, exhaustion or just standing for too long. The media worked to denormalize it.

Obsession with candidate bodies

NBC (7/4/24)

Overall, media seem to have a unique preoccupation with the bodies of presidential candidates–more than, say, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices or governors. There is a mythology around presidents, which Trump himself played into by recently referring to himself as a “fine and brilliant young man,” along with celebrating his survival of a recent assassination attempt.

Biden, who has historically portrayed himself as strong, and even claimed to overcome his stutter, finally started to let go of this mythology just before he dropped out of the race. He acknowledged age, exhaustion and slower speech. He joked about being fine besides his “brain.” And he mentioned that he might need more sleep. He was exhibiting another kind of strength through honesty, though it might have been strategic. It turned out to not be the most politically effective approach: Some media outlets highlighted him needing more sleep as headline-worthy and a red flag (NBC, 7/4/24; New York Times, 7/4/24).

The challenges Biden and Trump face in walking and speaking are evident to the public. Questions about underlying health issues are fair, but the implication of all of this “Best in Show” coverage is that people with significant disabilities, or even just a need for regular sleep, might face a hostile, intrusive media if they ran for president. And this discourse trickles down to how people feel permitted to speak about ordinary disabled civilians.

The presidency isn’t a sporting event. If media outlets are going to express concern about a candidate’s physical abilities, they should clarify what assumptions are guiding their concerns. As it stands, most of these articles and images just seem concerned with any signs of disability, which they implicitly associate with not being fit to serve.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Justine Barron.

US Defense Secretary visits Cambodia amid concern about China

By RFA Staff — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 07:48:13 +0000

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday for a brief visit, days after Cambodia and China wrapped up their biggest ever military exercise.

During his one-day visit, Austin will meet top Cambodian officials “to discuss defense issues with the new Cambodian leadership,” the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh said in a statement.

“This is the first bilateral visit by a U.S. Secretary of Defense, and it is the second for Secretary Austin following his attendance at the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus in November 2022,” it said.

Austin arrived in Cambodia from Singapore where he attended the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum. During the conference, the secretary sought to reassure U.S. allies of Washington’s “iron-clad” commitment in the region in the face of growing rivalry with China.

China and Cambodia have just held a 15-day military exercise, both on land and at sea, with the participation of three Chinese warships, two of which have been in Cambodia for six months at the Ream naval base.

The two corvettes were still seen docked at the base in Sihanoukville on Monday. The U.S government has said it has “serious concerns” about China’s plans for exclusive control over portions of the Ream Naval Base. Cambodia has repeatedly denied handing the base over to China.

U.S.-Cambodian relations have become strained during the past decade partly over U.S. concerns about the suppression of Cambodia’s political opposition.

In 2017, the Cambodian government suspended the joint Angkor Sentinel exercises between the two militaries and in 2018, the U.S. government suspended military assistance to Cambodia in response to its suppression of the opposition.

Cambodia under veteran leader Hun Sen rejected U.S. criticism of its domestic political conditions and built closer relations with China. Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister last year with his son, Hun Manet, taking over

Turning a new page?

Soon after arriving in Phnom Penh, Austin paid a courtesy call on Hun Sen, who is now president of the Senate. Hun Sen was accompanied by former defense minister Tea Banh in the meeting.

Austin also met Prime Minister Hun Manet, a West Point military academy graduate, and Defense Minister Tea Seiha.

Hun Manet and Tea Seiha are Hun Sen’s and Tea Banh’s sons, respectively.

Chhengpor Aun, research fellow at The Future Forum, a Cambodian think-tank, said Austin’s visit gave Cambodia’s new leaders the opportunity to highlight more balance in their country’s diplomacy.

“Secretary Austin will be much welcomed in Phnom Penh in general because his presence will help back up the Cambodian government’s attempt to prove it is still on the course of its promised neutrality in foreign relations,” said Chhengpor Aun.

"The Ream naval base, the ever-growing Sino-Cambodian defense relations, and strained military-to-military ties between Phnom Penh and Washington will highly likely dominate Secretary Austin’s meetings with senior Cambodian officials.”

Sailors stand guard near petrol boats at the Cambodian Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, July 26, 2019. (Reuters/Samrang Pring)

Another analyst – Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute – said that Austin's decision to visit Cambodia instead of the close ally the Philippines or newly elevated strategic comprehensive partner Vietnam, “reflects the U.S.’s attempt to reconcile deteriorating U.S.-Cambodia relations.”

“With Phnom Penh successfully transitioning leadership from Hun Sen to his son Hun Manet, Washington likely views this as a good moment for rapprochement,” Giang told Radio Free Asia, adding that while sensitive topics such as Chinese influence and the Ream naval base are likely be discussed, he thinks both sides “will focus more on potential cooperation and common interests, particularly as Cambodia will serve as the coordinator of the U.S.-ASEAN Dialogue Relations from 2024 to 2027.”

The state-aligned Khmer Times newspaper said that with Hun Manet’s “outward-looking policies,” there’s a unique prospect to recalibrate any misunderstanding and to start a new chapter in the two countries’ relationship, provided that both sides “are genuinely sincere with each other.”

The article by Pou Sothirak, senior advisor to the Cambodian Center for Regional Studies, and Him Raksmey, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Regional Studies suggested that the first thing for the U.S. to do wais to rethink its policy of targeted sanctions on Cambodian officials and members of the business elite, and restrictions on trade preferences “which are ineffective and counterproductive, compelling Cambodia deeper into economic reliance on China.”

The Future Forum’s Chhengpor Aun agreed that the new generation of Cambodian leaders “presents a window of opportunities for improvement of U.S. relations” as Cambodia wants to secure a stable state of relations with the U.S., now its biggest export destination.

Cambodia sold US$8.89 billion worth of goods to the U.S. in 2023, about 40% of its total exports, according to the Cambodian General Department of Customs and Excise.

However, “if the visit aims to woo Cambodia away from China or to push political reforms in Phnom Penh, Secretary Austin can be disappointed,” said Chhengpor Aun.

“Sino-Cambodian ties are important for Phnom Penh political elites – be it the old guards or the new princeling generation – in terms of political and regime security,” he said.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

RSF concern over whereabouts of Gazan journalist in Al Shifa hospital siege

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 07:27:24 +0000

Pacific Media Watch

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan.

She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in northern Gaza.

RSF has demanded that the Israeli military “shed light on the disappearance of @BayanPalestine”, her X handle.

On March 19, she posted a message on her X account saying “Israeli forces just murdered my only brother in front of my eyes”.

Israeli forces just murdered my only brother in front of my eyes.
أخويا شهيد.

— Bayan (@BayanPalestine) March 19, 2024

She has not been heard from since and RSF is investigating.

Meanwhile, to support journalists in the region affected by the war in Gaza, RSF has opened a new press freedom centre in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Following the opening of two centres in Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s large-scale invasion of the country in 2022, this initiative by RSF underlines the organisation’s ongoing commitment to helping information professionals meet the specific challenges they face.

Equipped with internet access, the Beirut centre, a regional hub for the media in the Middle East, will welcome journalists to work there if they wish.

RSF and its local partners will offer training in physical and digital security, particularly for those wishing to travel to Palestine.

Bullet-proof vests
Access to psychological support and legal assistance will also be provided, as well as protective equipment to cover dangerous areas (bullet-proof vests, helmets, first-aid kits, etc.).

“There is a clear and urgent need to support Palestinian journalism and the right to information throughout the Middle East, particularly the parts of the region most affected by the war in Gaza,” said RSF campaign director Rebecca Vincent.

“Drawing on our experience in Ukraine, where we opened two press freedom centres during the war, RSF is launching a regional centre in Beirut dedicated to supporting journalists.

“The centre will provide a crucial space, and essential services to reinforce the safety of journalists working in the region, and to defend press freedom.”

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Controversial New Education System (NES) Sparks Concern in Houston Public Schools

Shealeigh — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 19:27:38 +0000

In the article featured in the Winter 2023-2024 edition of Rethinking Schools, titled “The Takeover of Houston Public Schools,” Larry Miller reported on the Texas state legislature taking control of Houston’s Independent School District (ISD) through its Texas Education Agency. State officials chose to dissolve the elected school board, appointing…

The post Controversial New Education System (NES) Sparks Concern in Houston Public Schools appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Shealeigh.

CPJ signs joint statement expressing concern over injunction in favor of alleged murderers of Brazilian journalist

Committee to Protect Journalists — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 18:19:47 +0000

CPJ joined six Brazilian press freedom and advocacy organizations in a joint statement expressing concern about the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) injunction on February 28 that annulled the trial of four alleged murderers of journalist Valério Luiz de Oliveira. The statement urged the court to accept the prosecution’s motion for clarification, reverse its decision, and ensure that those accused of the journalist’s murder are held accountable.

An unidentified gunman on a motorcycle shot and killed Oliveira outside his offices at Rádio Jornal 820 AM, where he hosted a sports program, on July 5, 2012.

The injunction cancels all legal proceedings in the case after 2015, including the 2022 jury conviction of four men in Goiânia, the capital of the state of Goiás, where the journalist was murdered. Among the convicted were Maurício Borges Sampaio, a businessman and current president of Atlético Clube Goianiense, and Ademá Figueredo, a military police officer still on active duty.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Biden Quietly Approves 100+ Arms Sales to Israel While Claiming Concern for Civilians in Gaza

Democracy Now! — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 15:47:10 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Biden Admin Quietly Approves 100+ Arms Sales to Israel While Claiming Concern for Civilians in Gaza

Democracy Now! — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 13:35:27 +0000

While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid. Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the launch of Israel’s assault on October 7, which the Biden administration approved using emergency authority to bypass Congress. “It is actually illegal to provide military assistance to a country that is restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance, and we know that this is the case with Israel,” says Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. Paul describes the “production line”-style sale of weapons to Israel and says increasing internal dissent is putting pressure on Biden to change his “dead-end” policy of unconditional support for Israel. “We have a president and a set of policies … that remain set on this course regardless of the harm it is doing to Israeli security, to American global interests and, of course, to so many Palestinians.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

CPJ signs joint statement expressing concern over police operation against journalists in Brazil

Committee to Protect Journalists — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:09:33 +0000

CPJ joined eight Brazilian press freedom and advocacy organizations in a joint statement expressing extreme concern about a police investigation called “Operation Fake News,” launched on February 6, 2024, when police seized the computers and phones of Enock Cavalcante and Alexandre Aprá, journalists with the news website Isso É Notícias.

The investigation was the result of a complaint filed by the Mato Grosso state governor, Mauro Mendes, in connection to two articles about a local judge’s alleged illicit conversations with miners under investigation for the use of illegal mercury.

The statement said, “It is incompatible with the Brazilian constitutional protection of the right to freedom of the press for a criminal instrument to be used against journalists, especially in the case of representation for an offense against honor.”

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Kyrgyz Journalists Under Pressure Amid Watchdog’s Concern Over ‘Unprecedented Crackdown’

News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 12:01:52 +0000

President Vladimir Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson, a U.S. commentator who has made a name for himself by spreading conspiracy theories and has questioned Washington's support for Kyiv in its fight against invading Russian troops, has been widely criticized for giving the Russian leader a propaganda platform in his first interview with an American journalist since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

In the more than two-hour interview, released on Carlson’s website early on February 9, Putin again claimed Ukraine was a threat to Russia because the West was drawing the country into NATO -- an assertion the military alliance has called false -- while avoiding topics such as his brutal crackdown at home on civil society and free speech.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

The interview took place as Putin hopes that Western support for Kyiv will wane and morale among Ukrainians will flag to the point where his war aims are achievable. It also comes as U.S. military support for Kyiv is in question as Republican lawmakers block a $60 billion aid package proposed by President Joe Biden, and a reshuffle of Ukraine's dismissal of the top commander of the armed forces after a counteroffensive fell far short of its goals.

Putin urged the United States to press Kyiv to stop fighting and cut a deal with Russia, which occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine.

Carlson rarely challenged Putin, who gave a long and rambling lecture on the history of Russia and Ukraine, failing to bring up credible accusations from international rights groups that Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine -- Putin himself has been issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children during the conflict -- or the imprisonment of opposition figures such as Aleksei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza on trumped up charges that appear politically motivated.

"Putin got his message out the way he wanted to," said Ian Bremmer, a New York-based political scientist and president of Eurasiagroup.

Even before the meeting was published, Carlson faced criticism for interviewing Putin when his government is holding Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich and another U.S. journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL, in jail on charges related to their reporting that both vehemently deny.

Kurmasheva's case was not even mentioned in the interview, while Carlson angered the Wall Street Journal by suggesting that Putin should release the 33-year-old journalist even if “maybe he was breaking your law in some way.”

The U.S. State Department has officially designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia.

“Evan is a journalist and journalism is not a crime. Any portrayal to the contrary is total fiction,” the newspaper said in reaction to the interview.

“Evan was unjustly arrested and has been wrongfully detained by Russia for nearly a year for doing his job, and we continue to demand his immediate release.”

Putin said “an agreement can be reached” to free Gershkovich and appeared to suggest that a swap for a “patriotic” Russian national currently serving out a life sentence for murder in Germany -- an apparent reference to Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy organization convicted of assassinating a former Chechen fighter in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019.

"There is no taboo to settle this issue. We are willing to solve it, but there are certain terms being discussed via special services channels. I believe an agreement can be reached," Putin told Carlson.

Carlson, a former Fox News host, has made a name for himself by spreading conspiracy theories and has questioned U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against invading Russian troops. The interview was Putin's first with a Western media figure since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin said during the interview Russia has no interest in invading NATO member Poland and could only see one case where he would: "If Poland attacks Russia."

"We have no interest in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else. Why would we do that? We simply don't have any interest. It's just threat mongering. It is absolutely out of the question," he added.

Describing his decision to interview Putin in an announcement posted on X on February 6, Carlson asserted that U.S. media outlets focus fawningly on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy but that Putin’s voice is not heard in the United States because Western journalists have not “bothered” to interview him since the full-scale invasion.

Carlson has gained a reputation for defending the Russian leader, once claiming that "hating Putin has become the central purpose of America's foreign policy."

Numerous Western journalists rejected the claim, saying they have consistently sought to interview Putin but have been turned away. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later confirmed that, saying his office receives “numerous requests for interviews with the president” but that most of the Western outlets asking are “traditional TV channels and large newspapers that don’t even attempt to appear impartial in their coverage. Of course, there’s no desire to communicate with this kind of media.”

Carlson’s credentials as an independent journalist have been questioned, and in 2020 Fox News won a defamation case against him, with the judge saying in her verdict that when presenting stories, Carlson is not "stating actual facts" about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in "exaggeration" and "'nonliteral commentary."

Carlson was one of Fox News' top-rated hosts before he abruptly left the network last year after Fox settled a separate defamation lawsuit over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election. Fox agreed to pay $787 million to voting machine company Dominion after the company filed a lawsuit alleging the network spread false claims that its machines were rigged against former President Donald Trump.

Carlson has had a rocky relationship at times with the former president, but during Trump's presidency he had Carlson's full backing and he has endorsed Trump in his 2024 run to regain the White House.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

UN Voices Concern Over Arbitrary Arrests Of Afghan Women By Taliban Authorities For Alleged Violations Of Islamic Dress Code

News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 14:19:01 +0000

We asked some of our most perceptive journalists and analysts to anticipate tomorrow, to unravel the future, to forecast what the new year could have in store for our vast broadcast region. Among their predictions:

The war in Ukraine will persist until the West realizes that a return to the previous world order is unattainable.
In Iran, with parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the government is likely to face yet another challenge to its legitimacy.
In Belarus, setbacks for Russia in Ukraine could prompt the Lukashenka regime to attempt to normalize relations with the West.
While 2024 will see a rightward shift in the EU, it is unlikely to bring the deluge of populist victories that some are predicting.
The vicious spiral for women in Afghanistan will only worsen.
Peace between Armenia and its neighbors could set the stage for a Russian exit from the region.
Hungary's upcoming leadership of the European Council could prove a stumbling block to the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine.
Kyrgyzstan is on course to feel the pain of secondary sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine if the West's patience runs out.

Here, then, are our correspondents' predictions for 2024. To find out more about the authors themselves, click on their bylines.

The Ukraine War: A Prolonged Stalemate

By Vitaliy Portnikov

In September 2022, Ukrainian generals Valeriy Zaluzhniy and Mykhaylo Zabrodskiy presciently warned that Russia's aggression against Ukraine would unfold into a protracted conflict. Fast forward 15 months, and the front line is effectively frozen, with neither Ukrainian nor Russian offensives yielding substantial changes.

As 2023 comes to a close, observers find themselves revisiting themes familiar from the previous year: the potential for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive, the extent of Western aid to Kyiv, the possibility of a "frozen conflict,” security assurances for Ukraine, and the prospects for its Euro-Atlantic integration ahead of a NATO summit.

It is conceivable that, by the close of 2024, we will still be grappling with these same issues. A political resolution seems elusive, given the Kremlin's steadfast refusal to entertain discussions on vacating the parts of Ukraine its forces occupy. Conversely, Ukraine’s definition of victory is the full restoration of its territorial integrity.

Even if, in 2024, one side achieves a military victory -- whether through the liberation of part of Ukraine or Russia seizing control of additional regions -- it won't necessarily bring us closer to a political resolution. Acknowledging this impasse is crucial, as Russian President Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine is part of a broader agenda: a push to reestablish, if not the Soviet Empire, at least its sphere of influence.

Even if, in 2024, one side achieves a military victory, it won't necessarily bring us closer to a political resolution.

For Ukraine, resistance to Russian aggression is about not just reclaiming occupied territories but also safeguarding statehood, political identity, and national integrity. Western support is crucial for Ukraine's survival and the restoration of its territorial integrity. However, this backing aims to avoid escalation into a direct conflict between Russia and the West on Russia's sovereign territory.

The war's conclusion seems contingent on the depletion of resources on one of the two sides, with Ukraine relying on continued Western support and Russia on oil and gas revenues. Hence, 2024 might echo the patterns of 2023. Even if external factors shift significantly -- such as in the U.S. presidential election in November -- we might not witness tangible changes until 2025.

Another potential variable is the emergence of major conflicts akin to the war in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, this would likely signify the dissipation of Western resources rather than a shift in approaches to war.

In essence, the war in Ukraine will persist until the West realizes that a return to the previous world order is unattainable. Constructing a new world order demands unconventional measures, such as offering genuine security guarantees to nations victimized by aggression or achieving peace, or at least limiting the zone of military operations to the current contact line, without direct agreements with Russia.

So far, such understanding is lacking, and the expectation that Moscow will eventually grasp the futility of its ambitions only emboldens Putin. Consequently, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will endure, potentially spawning new, equally perilous local wars worldwide.

Iran: Problems Within And Without

By Hannah Kaviani

Iran has been dealing with complex domestic and international challenges for years and the same issues are likely to plague it in 2024. But officials in Tehran appear to be taking a “wait-and-see” approach to its lengthy list of multilayered problems.

Iran enters 2024 as Israel's war in Gaza continues and the prospects for a peaceful Middle East are bleak, with the situation exacerbated by militia groups firmly supported by Tehran.

Iran’s prominent role in supporting paramilitary forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen has also drawn the ire of the international community and will continue to be a thorn in the side of relations with the West.

Tehran has refused to cooperate with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program, resulting in an impasse in talks with the international community. And with the United States entering an election year that could see the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, the likelihood of Tehran and Washington resuming negotiations -- which could lead to a reduction in sanctions -- is considered very low.

But Iran's problems are not limited to outside its borders.

Another critical issue Iranian officials must continue to deal with in 2024 is the devastated economy.

The country’s clerical regime is still reeling from the massive protests that began in 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody after her arrest for not obeying hijab rules. The aftershocks of the Women, Life, Freedom movement that emanated from her death were reflected in acts of civil disobedience that are likely to continue in 2024.

At the same time, a brutal crackdown continues as civil rights activists, students, religious minorities, and artists are being beaten, detained, and/or given harsh prison sentences.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the government is likely to face yet another challenge to its legitimacy as it struggles with low voter turnout and general disinterest in another round of controlled elections.

Another critical issue Iranian officials must continue to deal with in 2024 is the devastated economy resulting from the slew of international sanctions because of its controversial nuclear program. After a crushing year of 47 percent inflation in 2023 (a 20-year high, according to the IMF), costs are expected to continue to rise for many foods and commodities, as well as real estate.

Iran’s widening budget deficit due to reduced oil profits continues to cripple the economy, with the IMF reporting that the current government debt is equal to three annual budgets.

With neither the international community nor the hard-line Tehran regime budging, most analysts see scant chances for significant changes in Iran in the coming year.

Belarus: Wider War Role, Integration With Russia Not In The Cards

By Valer Karbalevich

Belarus has been pulled closer into Moscow’s orbit than ever by Russia’s war in Ukraine -- but in 2024, it’s unlikely to be subsumed into the much larger nation to its east, and chances are it won’t step up its so-far limited involvement in the conflict in the country to its south.

The most probable scenario in Belarus, where the authoritarian Alyaksandr Lukashenka will mark 30 years since he came to power in 1994, is more of the same: No letup in pressure on all forms of dissent at home, no move to send troops to Ukraine. And while Russia’s insistent embrace will not loosen, the Kremlin will abstain from using Belarusian territory for any new ground attacks or bombardments of Ukraine.

But the war in Ukraine is a wild card, the linchpin influencing the trajectory of Belarus in the near term and beyond. For the foreseeable future, what happens in Belarus -- or to it -- will depend in large part on what happens in Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

Should the current equilibrium on the front persist and Western support for Ukraine persist, the likelihood is a continuation of the status quo for Belarus. The country will maintain its allegiance to Russia, marked by diplomatic and political support. Bolstered by Russian loans, Belarus's defense industry will further expand its output.

If Russia wins or scores substantial victories in Ukraine, Lukashenka will reap "victory dividends."

The Belarusian state will continue to militarize the border with Ukraine, posing a perpetual threat to Kyiv and diverting Ukrainian troops from the eastern and southern fronts. At the same time, however, Russia is unlikely to use Belarusian territory as a launching point for fresh assaults on Ukraine, as it did at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

If Russia wins or scores substantial victories -- if Ukraine is forced into negotiations on Moscow’s terms, for example, or the current front line comes to be considered the international border -- Lukashenka, consolidating his position within the country, will reap "victory dividends." But relations between Belarus and Russia are unlikely to change dramatically.

Potentially, Moscow could take major steps to absorb Belarus, diminishing its sovereignty and transforming its territory into a staging ground for a fresh assault on Kyiv. This would increase tensions with the West and heighten concerns about the tactical nuclear weapons Moscow and Minsk say Russia has transferred to Belarus. However, this seems unlikely due to the absence of military necessity for Moscow and the problems it could create on the global stage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Moscow in April

The loss of Belarusian sovereignty would pose a major risk for Lukashenka and his regime. An overwhelming majority of Belarusians oppose the direct involvement of Belarus in the war against Ukraine. This fundamental distinction sets Belarus apart from Russia, and bringing Belarus into the war could trigger a political crisis in Belarus -- an outcome Moscow would prefer to avoid.

If Russia loses the war or sustains significant defeats that weaken Putin, Lukashenka's regime may suffer economic and political repercussions. This could prompt him to seek alternative global alliances, potentially leading to an attempt to normalize relations with the West.

Russia, Ukraine, And The West: Sliding Toward World War III

By Sergei Medvedev

2024 will be a critical year for the war in Ukraine and for the entire international system, which is quickly unraveling before our eyes. The most crucial of many challenges is a revanchist, resentful, belligerent Russia, bent on destroying and remaking the world order. In his mind, President Vladimir Putin is fighting World War III, and Ukraine is a prelude to a global showdown.

Despite Western sanctions, Russia has consolidated its position militarily, domestically, and internationally in 2023. After setbacks and shocks in 2022, the military has stabilized the front and addressed shortages of arms, supplies, and manpower. Despite latent discontent, the population is not ready to question the war, preferring to stay in the bubble of learned ignorance and the lies of state propaganda.

Here are four scenarios for 2024:

Strategic stalemate in Ukraine, chaos in the international system: The West, relaxed by a 30-year “peace dividend,” lacks the vision and resolve of the 1980s, when its leaders helped bring about the U.S.S.R.’s collapse, let alone the courage of those who stood up to Nazi Germany in World War II. Putin’s challenge to the free world is no less significant than Hitler’s was, but there is no Roosevelt or Churchill in sight. Probability: 70 percent

While breakup into many regions is unlikely, the Russian empire could crumble at the edges.

Widening war, collapse or division of Ukraine: Russia could defend and consolidate its gains in Ukraine, waging trench warfare while continuing to destroy civilian infrastructure, and may consider a side strike in Georgia or Moldova -- or against Lithuania or Poland, testing NATO. A frontal invasion is less likely than a hybrid operation by “unidentified” units striking from Belarus, acts of sabotage, or unrest among Russian-speakers in the Baltic states. Other Kremlin operations could occur anywhere in the world. The collapse of Ukraine’s government or the division of the country could not be ruled out. Probability: 15 percent.

Russia loses in Ukraine: A military defeat for Russia, possibly entailing a partial or complete withdrawal from Ukraine. Consistent Western support and expanded supplies of arms, like F-16s or Abrams tanks, or a big move such as closing the skies over Ukraine, could provide for this outcome. It would not necessarily entail Russia’s collapse -- it could further consolidate the nation around Putin’s regime. Russia would develop a resentful identity grounded in loss and defeat -- and harbor the idea of coming back with a vengeance. Probability: 10 percent

Russia’s Collapse: A military defeat in Ukraine could spark social unrest, elite factional battles, and an anti-Putin coup, leading to his demotion or violent death. Putin’s natural death, too, could set off a succession struggle, causing chaos in a country he has rid of reliable institutions. While breakup into many regions is unlikely, the empire could crumble at the edges -- Kaliningrad, Chechnya, the Far East – like in 1917 and 1991. Russia’s nuclear weapons would be a big question mark, leading to external involvement and possible de-nuclearization. For all its perils, this scenario might provide a framework for future statehood in Northern Eurasia. Probability: 5 percent

The ruins of the Ukrainian town of Maryinka are seen earlier this year following intense fighting with invading Russian forces.

EU: 'Fortress Europe' And The Ukraine War

By Rikard Jozwiak

2024 will see a rightward shift in the European Union, but it is unlikely to bring the deluge of populist victories that some are predicting since Euroskeptics won national elections in the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia and polled well in Austria and Germany.

The European Parliament elections in June will be the ultimate test for the bloc in that respect. Polls still suggest the two main political groups, the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, will finish on top, albeit with a smaller share of the vote. But right-wing populist parties are likely to fail once again to agree on the creation of a single political group, thus eroding their influence in Brussels.

This, in turn, is likely to prod more pro-European groups into combining forces again to divvy up EU top jobs like the presidencies of the European Commission, the bloc's top executive body, and the European Council, which defines the EU's political direction and priorities. Center-right European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is widely tipped to get a second term, even though she might fancy NATO's top job as secretary-general. Charles Michel, on the other hand, will definitely be out as European Council president after serving the maximum five years.

While right-wing populists may not wield major influence in the horse-trading for those top jobs, they will affect policy going forward. They have already contributed to a hardening of attitudes on migration, and you can expect to hear more of the term "fortress Europe" as barriers go up on the EU's outer border.

The one surefire guarantee in Europe isn't about the European Union at all but rather about NATO.

The biggest question for 2024, however, is about how much support Brussels can provide Ukraine going forward. Could the "cost-of-living crisis" encourage members to side with Budapest to block financial aid or veto the start of de facto accession talks with that war-torn country? The smart money is still on the EU finding a way to green-light both those decisions in 2024, possibly by unfreezing more EU funds for Budapest.

Although it seems like a remote possibility, patience could also finally wear out with Hungary, and the other 26 members could decide to strip it of voting rights in the Council of the European Union, which amends, approves, and vetoes European Commission proposals -- essentially depriving it of influence. In that respect, Austria and Slovakia, Budapest's two biggest allies right now, are the EU countries to watch.

The one surefire guarantee in Europe isn't about the European Union at all but rather about NATO: After somehow failing to join as predicted for each of the past two years, against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden will become the transatlantic military alliance's 32nd member once the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments vote to ratify its accession protocol.

Caucasus: A Peace Agreement Could Be Transformative

By Josh Kucera

Could 2024 be the year that Armenia and Azerbaijan finally formally resolve decades of conflict?

This year, Azerbaijan effectively decided -- by force -- their most contentious issue: the status of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. With its lightning offensive in September, Azerbaijan placed Karabakh firmly under its control. Both sides now say they've reached agreement on most of their fundamental remaining issues, and diplomatic talks, after an interruption, appear set to resume.

A resolution of the conflict could transform the region. If Armenia and Azerbaijan made peace, a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement could soon follow. Borders between the three countries would reopen as a result, ending Armenia's long geographical isolation and priming the South Caucasus to take full advantage of new transportation projects seeking to ship cargo between Europe and Asia while bypassing Russia.

Peace between Armenia and its neighbors also could set the stage for a Russian exit from the region. Russian-Armenian security cooperation has been predicated on potential threats from Azerbaijan and Turkey. With those threats reduced, what's keeping the Russian soldiers, peacekeepers, and border guards there?

There are mounting indications that Azerbaijan may not see it in its interests to make peace.

A Russian exit would be a messy process -- Moscow still holds many economic levers in Armenia -- but Yerevan could seek help from the United States and Europe to smooth any transition. Washington and Brussels have seemingly been waiting in the wings, nudging Armenia in their direction.

But none of this is likely to happen without a peace agreement. And while there don't seem to be any unresolvable issues remaining, there are mounting indications that Azerbaijan may not see it in its interests to make peace. Baku has gotten what it wanted most of all -- full control of Karabakh -- without an agreement. And maintaining a simmering conflict with Armenia could arguably serve Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev well, as it would allow him to continue to lean on a reliable source of public support: rallying against an Armenian enemy.

But perhaps the most conspicuous indication of a broader strategy is Aliyev's increasing invocation of "Western Azerbaijan" -- a hazily defined concept alluding to ethnic Azerbaijanis who used to live on the territory of what is now Armenia and their presumed right to return to their homes. It suggests that Azerbaijan might keep furthering its demands in hopes that Armenia finally throws in the towel, and each can accuse the other of intransigence.

Hungary: The Return Of Big Brother?

By Pablo Gorondi

Critics might be tempted to believe that Big Brother will be watching over Hungarians in 2024 like at no point since the fall of communism.

A new law on the Defense of National Sovereignty will allow the Office for the Defense of Sovereignty, which the law created, to investigate and request information from almost any group in Hungary that receives foreign funding. This will apply to civic groups, political parties, private businesses, media companies -- in fact, anyone deemed to be conducting activities (including "information manipulation and disinformation") in the interests of a foreign "body, organization, or person."

The law has been criticized by experts from the United Nations and the Council of Europe over its seemingly vague language, lack of judicial oversight, and fears that it could be used by the government "to silence and stigmatize independent voices and opponents."

The head of the Office for the Defense of Sovereignty should be nominated for a six-year term by right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban and appointed by President Katalin Novak by February 1. This would allow the new authority to carry out investigations and present findings ahead of simultaneous elections to the European Parliament and Hungarian municipal bodies in early June -- possibly influencing their outcomes.

Orban has said in recent interviews that he wants to "fix the European Union" and that "we need to take over Brussels."

Asked by RFE/RL's Hungarian Service, some experts said fears of the new authority are overblown and that the government is more likely to use it as a threat hanging over opponents than as a direct tool for repression -- at least until it finds it politically necessary or expedient to tighten control.

On the international scene, meanwhile, Hungary will take over the Council of the European Union's six-month rotating presidency in July, a few weeks after voting to determine the composition of a new European Parliament.

MEPs from Orban's Fidesz party exited the center-right European People's Party bloc in 2021 and have not joined another group since then, although some observers expect them to join the more Euroskeptic and nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists.

Orban has for years predicted a breakthrough of more radical right-wing forces in Europe. But while that has happened in Italy, the Netherlands, and Slovakia, experts suggest that's not enough to fuel a significant shift in the European Parliament, where the center-right and center-left should continue to hold a clear majority.

Because of the June elections, the European Parliament's activities will initially be limited -- and its election of a European Commission president could prove complicated. Nevertheless, Orban has said in recent interviews that he wants to "fix the European Union" and that "we need to take over Brussels." So, Hungary's leadership may make progress difficult on issues that Orban opposes, like the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine or a possible reelection bid by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit in Brussels on December 14.

Stability And The 'Serbian World'

By Gjeraqina Tuhina and Milos Teodorovic

Gjeraqina Tuhina

Serbia, once again, will be a key player in the region -- and its moves could significantly shape events in the Balkans over the next 12 months.

For over a decade, the dialogue to normalize relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo has stymied both countries. Then, in February in Brussels and March in Ohrid, North Macedonia, European mediators announced a path forward and its implementation. There was only one problem: There was no signature on either side. Nine months later, little has changed.

Many eyes are looking toward one aspect in particular -- a renewed obligation for Pristina to allow for an "appropriate level of self-management" for the Serb minority in Kosovo. This also entails creating possibilities for financial support from Serbia to Kosovar Serbs and guarantees for direct communication of the Serb minority with the Kosovar government.

Milos Teodorovic

In October, EU mediators tried again, and with German, French, and Italian backing presented both parties with a new draft for an association of Serb-majority municipalities. Both sides accepted the draft. EU envoy to the region Miroslav Lajcak suggested in December that the Ohrid agreement could be implemented by the end of January. If that happened, it would mark a decisive step for both sides in a dialogue that began in 2011.

"The Serbian world" is a phrase launched a few years ago by pro-Russian Serbian politician Aleksandar Vulin, a longtime cabinet minister who until recently headed the Serbian Intelligence Service. It is not officially part of the agenda of either Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic or the government, but it underscores the influence that Serbia seeks to wield from Kosovo and Montenegro to Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But how Vucic chooses to exert the implicit ties to Serb leaders and nationalists in those countries could do much to promote stability -- or its antithesis -- in the Balkans in 2024.

Another major challenge for Vucic revolves around EU officials' request that candidate country Serbia harmonize its foreign policy with the bloc. So far, along with Turkey, Serbia is the only EU candidate that has not introduced sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is unclear how far the Serbian president is willing to push back to foster ongoing good relations with Moscow.

But first, Serbia will have to confront the fallout from snap elections in December dominated by Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party but rejected by the newly united opposition as fraudulent. The results sparked nightly protests in the capital and hunger strikes by a half-dozen lawmakers and other oppositionists. A new parliament is scheduled to hold a session by the end of January 2024, and the margins are seemingly razor-thin for control of the capital, Belgrade.

Central Asia: Don't Write Russia Off Just Yet

By Chris Rickleton

Will the empire strike back? 2023 has been a galling year for Russia in Central Asia as it watched its traditional partners (and former colonies) widen their diplomatic horizons.

With Russia bogged down in a grueling war in Ukraine, Moscow has less to offer the region than ever before. Central Asia’s five countries have made the most of the breathing space, with their leaders holding landmark talks with U.S. and German leaders as French President Emmanuel Macron also waltzed into Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with multibillion-dollar investments.

And China has reinforced its dominant position in the region, while Turkey has also increased its influence.

But don’t write Russia off just yet.

One of Moscow’s biggest wins in the neighborhood this year was an agreement to supply Uzbekistan with nearly 3 billion cubic meters of gas every year, a figure that could increase.

Power deficits in Uzbekistan and energy-rich Kazakhstan are the most obvious short-term sources of leverage for Moscow over those important countries.

The coming year will likely bring more in terms of specifics over both governments’ plans for nuclear power production, with Russia fully expected to be involved.

And Moscow’s confidence in a region that it views as its near abroad will only increase if it feels it is making headway on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Tajikistan

Tajikistan’s hereditary succession has been expected for so long that people have stopped expecting it. Does that mean it is back on the cards for 2024? Probably not.

In 2016, Tajikistan passed a raft of constitutional changes aimed at cementing the ruling Rahmon family’s hold on power. Among them was one lowering the age to run for president from 35 to 30.

Turkmenistan’s bizarre new setup begs a question: If you’re not ready to let it go, why not hold on a little longer?

That amendment had an obvious beneficiary -- veteran incumbent Emomali Rahmon’s upwardly mobile son, Rustam Emomali. But Emomali is now 36 and, despite occupying a political post that makes him next in line, doesn’t look any closer to becoming numero uno.

Perhaps there hasn’t been a good time to do it.

From the coronavirus pandemic to a bloody crackdown on unrest in the Gorno-Badakhshan region and now the shadows cast by the Ukraine war, there have been plenty of excuses to delay the inevitable.

Turkmenistan

But perhaps Rahmon is considering events in Turkmenistan, where Central Asia’s first father-son power transition last year has ended up nothing of the sort. Rather than growing into the role, new President Serdar Berdymukhammedov is shrinking back into the shadow of his all-powerful father, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

And this seems to be exactly how the older Berdymukhammedov wanted it, subsequently fashioning himself a post-retirement post that makes his son and the rest of the government answerable to him.

But Turkmenistan’s bizarre new setup begs a question: If you’re not ready to let it go, why not hold on a little longer?

Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhammedov in front of a portrait of his father, former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov

Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) in November, a former IMF economist argued that Kyrgyzstan would be the "perfect test case" for secondary sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Robin Brooks described the country as "small, not remotely systemically important, and very clearly facilitating trade diversion to Russia."

Official statistics show that countries in the Eurasian Economic Union that Moscow leads have become a “backdoor” around the Western-led sanctions targeting Russia. Exports to Kyrgyzstan from several EU countries this year, for example, are up by at least 1,000 percent compared to 2019.

Data for exports to Kazakhstan shows similar patterns -- with larger volumes but gentler spikes -- while investigations by RFE/RL indicate that companies in both Central Asian countries have forwarded “dual-use” products that benefit the Kremlin’s military machine.

Belarus is the only Russian ally to get fully sanctioned for its support of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine -- but will that change in 2024?

Central Asian governments will argue they have resisted Russian pressure to provide political and military support for the war. They might even whisper that their big friend China is much more helpful to Russia.

But the West’s approach of targeting only Central Asian companies actively flouting the regime is failing.

So, while Western diplomats continue to credit the region’s governments for their anti-evasion efforts, their patience may wear out. And if it does, Kyrgyzstan might be first to find out.

Afghanistan: The Vicious Spiral Will Worsen

By Malali Bashir

With little internal threat to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and the failure of the international community to affect change in the hard-line Islamist regime’s policies, the Taliban mullahs’ control over the country continues to tighten.

And that regime’s continued restrictions on Afghan women -- their rights, freedom, and role in society -- signals a bleak future for them in 2024 and beyond.

Many observers say the move by the Taliban in December to only allow girls to attend religious madrasahs -- after shutting down formal schooling for them following the sixth grade -- is an effort by the Taliban to radicalize Afghan society.

“Madrasahs are not an alternative to formal schooling because they don’t produce doctors, lawyers, journalists, engineers, etc. The idea of [only] having madrasahs is…about brainwashing [people] to create an extremist society,” says Shukria Barakzai, the former Afghan ambassador to Norway.

The crackdown on women’s rights by the Taliban will also continue the reported uptick in domestic violence in the country, activists say.

Since the Taliban shut down Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission and Women Affairs Ministry, women find themselves with nowhere to turn to and find it extremely difficult to seek justice in Taliban courts.

The Taliban seems adamant about maintaining its severe limits on women and reducing their role in society.

With no justice for victims of abuse on the horizon, women’s rights activists say violence against women will continue with no repercussions for the perpetrators.

Barakzai argues that Taliban officials have already normalized domestic violence and do not consider it a crime.

“According to [a Taliban] decree, you can [confront] women if they are not listening to [your requests]. Especially a male member of the family is allowed to use all means to punish women if they refuse to follow his orders. That is basically a call for domestic violence,” she said.

The vicious spiral for women will only worsen.

Being banned from education, work, and public life, Afghan women say the resulting psychological impact leads to panic, depression, and acute mental health crises.

Although there are no official figures, Afghan mental health professionals and foreign organizations have noted a disturbing surge in female suicides in the two years since the Taliban came to power.

"If we look at the women who were previously working or studying, 90 percent suffer from mental health issues now," said Mujeeb Khpalwak, a psychiatrist in Kabul. "They face tremendous economic uncertainty after losing their work and are very anxious about their future."

A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations in Kabul in May.

Heather Bar, associate director of the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch, says, "It's not surprising that we're hearing reports of Afghan girls committing suicide. Because all their rights, including going to school, university, and recreational places have been taken away from them."

Promising young Afghan women who once aspired to contribute to their communities after pursuing higher education now find themselves with no career prospects.

“I do not see any future. When I see boys continuing their education, I lose all hope and wish that I was not born a girl,” a former medical student in Kabul told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

Despite immense global pressure, the Taliban seems adamant about maintaining its severe limits on women and reducing their role in society. This will result in a tragic future for the women of Afghanistan with no relief in sight.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Philips Recalled Breathing Machines in 2021. Chemicals of “Concern” Found in Replacement Machines Raised New Alarm.

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 10:30:00 +0000

by Debbie Cenziper, ProPublica; Michael D. Sallah and Evan Robinson-Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and Margaret Fleming, Medill Investigative Lab

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

On the morning of June 14, 2021, Dr. Radhika Breaden hurried to a computer in her hushed sleep disorders clinic and tried not to panic.

The 52-year-old physician treated patients with heart conditions, cancer and neurological diseases. She cared for veterans with compromised lungs and a woman with Down syndrome. In more than a dozen years of helping people breathe through the night, she had never confronted an emergency that jeopardized nearly all of her patients at once.

Global device maker Philips Respironics was pulling its popular sleep apnea machines and ventilators off the shelves after discovering that an industrial foam built into the devices to reduce noise could release toxic particles and fumes into the masks worn by patients.

Breaden scoured the internet for details, certain that Philips had a plan to quickly ship new, safe machines to the thousands of people under her care at the Portland, Oregon, clinic. “It’s a multibillion-dollar, multinational company,” she recalled telling her staff.

But as Philips publicly pledged to send out replacements, supervisors inside the company’s headquarters near Pittsburgh were quietly racing to manage a new crisis that threatened the massive recall and posed risks to patients all over again.

Tests by independent laboratories retained by Philips had found that a different foam used by the company — material fitted inside the millions of replacement machines — was also emitting dangerous chemicals, including formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.

Though Philips has said the machines are safe, ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obtained test results and other internal records that reveal for the first time how scientists working for the company grew increasingly alarmed and how infighting broke out as the new threat reached the highest levels of the Pittsburgh operation.

The findings also underscore an unchecked pattern of corporate secrecy that began long before Philips decided to use the new foam.

The company had previously failed to disclose complaints about the original foam in its profitable breathing machines, a polyester-based polyurethane material that was found to degrade in heat and humidity. Former patients and others have described hundreds of deaths and thousands of cases of cancer in government reports.

After the introduction of the new foam in 2021, this one made of silicone, the company again held back details about the problem from the public even as it sent out replacement machines with the new material to customers around the world.

One of the devices was the DreamStation 2, a newly released continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine promoted as one of the company’s primary replacements.

A Philips Respironics manufacturing facility near Pittsburgh (Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Federal regulators were alerted to the concern more than two years ago but said in a news release at the time that the company was carrying out additional tests on the foam and that patients should keep using their replacements until more details were available. The Food and Drug Administration has not provided new information on the test results since then, and it is still unclear whether the material is safe.

That leaves millions of people in the United States alone caught in the middle, including those with sleep apnea, which causes breathing to stop and start through the night and can lead to heart attacks, strokes and sudden death.

Philips “let me down all this time and now they’re just doing it again,” said 56-year-old retired nuclear engineer Richard Callender, who recently started using one of the replacement devices in his home near Pittsburgh.

Public health experts interviewed by ProPublica and the Post-Gazette said it’s critical that patients using the machines are told about the potential risks.

“It’s a question of providing the facts,” said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of the health research group at the nonprofit Public Citizen and an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Medicine. “The assumption is the new machines and the refitted ones are OK, that the foam issue has been 100% resolved. That’s not the case.”

The new foam isn’t the only problem: An internal investigation at Philips launched in the months after the recall found that water was condensing in the circuitry of the DreamStation 2, creating a new series of safety risks.

“Loss of therapy, thermal events, and shock hazards,” the investigation concluded.

The FDA issued an alert about overheating last month, warning that the devices could produce “fire, smoke, burns, and other signs of overheating” and advising patients to keep the machines away from carpet, fabric and “other flammable materials.”

Philips has said that customers could continue using the devices if they followed safety instructions.

In response to concerns about the silicone foam, the company said the material was tested against safety limits recognized by the FDA and the World Health Organization and did not emit chemicals at unsafe levels. Philips said formaldehyde, found in common household items, only becomes a risk at high exposure.

“The repaired and new replacement devices with the silicone sound abatement foam are safe,” and findings that conclude otherwise are “inaccurate,” the company said in a statement.

Philips said additional test results were submitted last year to the FDA, but the agency has not yet provided a response.

In a statement, the FDA said more tests are needed on the foam before determining if the devices pose “risks to patients.”

Experts who reviewed the test results for the news organizations said the findings revealed troubling markers, including the presence of formaldehyde at levels that exceed safety thresholds established by multiple organizations. Thresholds vary, they said, and those cited by Philips allow for far higher formaldehyde levels than others.

Safety thresholds also do not take into account patients who are already suffering from chronic illnesses and breathing from devices that emit fumes directly into the lungs.

The experts said that one of the most vexing concerns is that formaldehyde — linked to respiratory problems and certain cancers — showed up in multiple tests and at varying levels, at times low and at others higher.

“Who knows what a patient could be exposed to?” said an engineer familiar with the testing who still works in the industry and did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals. “If you had grenades and you’re not sure where they’re going to go off, that’s a problem.”

After questions from ProPublica and the Post-Gazette — and more than two years after the problem surfaced — the company put out a more detailed explanation about the issue late last week.

Documents related to the company’s testing have been turned over to the Department of Justice, which launched an investigation of the recall last year, according to sources familiar with the probe.

Philips has said that it is cooperating with investigators and that the company initially did not believe that complaints dating back more than a decade about the recalled machines needed to be reported. The company said it took action as soon as it learned of the significance of the problem.

Dr. Radhika Breaden, a sleep medicine doctor in Portland, Oregon, said most of her 20,000 patients were using Philips machines when the company announced a recall in 2021. (Liz Moughon/ProPublica)

Breaden, the Portland physician, said she had no idea that new problems have emerged and now worries that doctors and patients have been once again left to fend for themselves.

“There’s just a lot of things that we’re all being kept in the dark about,” she said.

“Compounds of Concern”

The trouble with the replacement machines surfaced shortly after the June 2021 recall, which sent the company’s stock prices tumbling and led to hundreds of lawsuits by Philips customers.

An FDA inspection of the firm’s manufacturing plant near Pittsburgh turned up a surprise discovery: a copy of a test that an independent lab conducted on a CPAP machine with the new foam showing results that the agency had not previously seen, public records show.

An inspector later noted in a report that the machine failed emissions testing because it produced “compounds of concern” with carcinogenic properties and that pediatric patients who use the machines could be especially vulnerable.

At the time, the FDA said it carried out a “benefit-risk assessment” and decided that until more information became available, not using the devices at all “may be more harmful to a patient’s health.”

One of the chemicals that turned up in the testing was formaldehyde, which also showed up on a second set of test results from another lab in August, records and interviews show.

That fall, the company opened an internal investigation after receiving complaints about the DreamStation 2. Engineers evaluated 97 devices and found that about 1 in 5 showed evidence of moisture and that nine had experienced “thermal events,” according to the company’s report.

Though the investigation concluded the problem could cause the machines to stop working or shock patients while in use, Philips deemed the risk “acceptable” and said “containment activities” were unnecessary, the records show.

In the months that followed, Philips forged ahead. With pressure mounting to meet the needs of customers, the company promised that everyone affected by the recall would get a replacement machine or a repaired one within a year.

At the time, hospitals and medical practices were waiting on the devices. So was the Department of Veterans Affairs, where an urgent alert in late 2021 warned that the supply of CPAPs was “critically low.”

“Warehouses are currently out,” the agency said in an internal email. “Level red.”

The wait forced some sleep apnea patients to place a dangerous bet. In suburban Pittsburgh, Callender continued to use his recalled CPAP for months. He said he couldn’t get a new one from Philips even though he had a double lung transplant in 2015 and a kidney transplant in 2021.

“I told them I was in dire need,” said Callender, a former mayor of Lower Burrell, Pennsylvania, who eventually started using an old machine that he had stashed in a bedroom closet. “Never heard back from Philips.”

Callender said he had no idea he was waiting on a machine that was fitted with a foam still under review by federal regulators.

Richard Callender, who underwent a double lung transplant and a kidney transplant, waited months for a replacement machine. (Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

“They failed me on so many levels,” said Callender, who received a replacement machine from Philips several weeks ago.

In the spring of 2022, as Philips continued to ship out replacements filled with the new foam, the company had a series of meetings with the FDA to discuss the ongoing testing.

Jeff Shuren, the agency’s chief regulator of medical devices, was directly involved, writing to Philips in May about test results that the company had promised but not yet delivered to the agency, according to emails obtained through a public records lawsuit filed against the FDA by ProPublica and the Post-Gazette.

“This is especially important,” Shuren emailed the company.

The records do not make clear what transpired in those meetings, but more than a year later, the FDA has continued to advise patients that the agency will provide information on the testing when it becomes available.

While the FDA was meeting with Philips, tensions flared among the company’s scientists and managers responsible for handling the crisis, interviews and internal communications show.

Philips “didn’t believe the results,” said the engineer familiar with the testing. “The Philips folks gnashed their teeth at it and they went to test more devices.”

ProPublica and the Post-Gazette obtained communications sent by a scientist at Philips who was alarmed about test results showing formaldehyde over the “threshold for safe exposure.” “FDA has the data. Are they just waiting for the final report from Philips? How is this sustainable?”

Though the chemical tends to quickly dissipate, experts say that even brief exposure at high levels can pose serious risk to patients who are already vulnerable, including infants, the elderly and others with chronic illnesses.

In June 2022, then-Philips biological safety engineer Adam Majka sent an email to several colleagues, writing, “We need to start finalizing reports where we have acceptable results and we do not expect further changes.”

One of the recipients was Denver Faulk, a senior safety engineer at Philips who was charged with helping to lead the company’s response, according to interviews and emails.

That same month, Philips put out an update saying that draft test reports on the foam had “not identified any safety issues.”

Around that time, Faulk sent an internal message about a safety threshold for formaldehyde proposed by Philips to one of the independent labs brought on by the company.

Toxicologists can assess the level of cancer risk against different thresholds used by scientists, governments and others; the same device can pass one test but fail another depending on the threshold. In his message, Faulk said the lab had accepted the benchmark proposed by Philips.

“Great news. … They are updating all of their reports accordingly,” Faulk wrote. “A big win for the team!”

In its statement, Philips said it proposed a limit used by the World Health Organization to provide a “harmonized” threshold at the company’s testing labs.

That threshold allows for far higher formaldehyde emissions than benchmarks used by other organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency.

Neither Faulk nor Majka responded to requests for comment.

Pleas for Help

As lawmakers call on federal investigators to hold Philips accountable, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said he wants the FDA, not the company, to oversee the testing.

“People are suffering,” said Tong, who, along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote to the agency last year urging aggressive enforcement against Philips. “We don’t know enough about what’s happening with the silicone to make a judgment about it and so we’re still very concerned.”

Patients say they have received little or no information about the issue. Hundreds have reported other concerns to the government, including the delivery of refurbished devices that were missing parts or had foul odors.

“Completely unusable,” one customer wrote last year. “It emitted an extremely … nauseating smell. I was so sick I got up and did not sleep the rest of the night.”

Others described long waits for their replacements. Hundreds of thousands of people were still waiting on their machines in April, nearly two years after the recall, according to the company’s website.

“I wanted to go there and throw the machine right through the window,” said David Campano, 71, a former steelworker who continued to use his recalled CPAP for months while he waited on a replacement from the sprawling Philips factory only miles from his home near Pittsburgh.

Campano, a former steelworker, said he was frustrated by the recall and the response from Philips. (Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

In the suburbs of Atlanta, retired elementary school teacher Debra Miller emailed Philips last year after endless rounds of automated responses as she tried to figure out when she would get a new machine.

A few days later, she said, a package arrived at her home containing the motor of a new machine, but no electrical cord, explanation or instructions for use.

“Dumped in a box,” said Miller, 70, who taught for 30 years. “I literally got … half of an old machine.”

Miller said she had no idea that the machine she was waiting on came with its own risks.

Debra Miller, a retired schoolteacher, said the replacement machine that she received from Philips was missing an electrical cord and instructions. (Liz Moughon/ProPublica)

Philips said the recall required the company to reach millions of patients and was complicated by supply chain challenges. In some cases, CPAP motors were delivered without other parts to “enable the easiest and most familiar replacement option,” the company said, adding that the replacement plan for sleep apnea machines is nearly complete in the United States.

In the early days of the recall, Breaden and her team at the sleep clinic in Portland were focused only on getting new machines to the thousands of patients who used them night after night.

Just beyond a waiting room with a framed message, “Healthy people get their sleep,” Breaden said she now worries about an entirely new set of problems.

Breaden, the sleep doctor in Portland, said she is still trying to provide answers for her patients. (Liz Moughon/ProPublica)

After learning about the test results on the new foam from ProPublica and the Post-Gazette, the sleep medicine doctor who had been personally using a DreamStation 2 said she needs more information from the company and the government.

“I’m prescribing air. It’s wonderful to prescribe something that has no side effects and can help with your sleep,” she said. “It’s sad not to be able to say that anymore.”

Michael Korsh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Nicole Tan, Bridgette Adu-Wadier and Susanti Sarkar of the Medill Investigative Lab contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by .

CPJ expresses grave concern over 4th communications blackout in Gaza

Committee to Protect Journalists — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 20:07:41 +0000

New York, November 16, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is highly alarmed by widespread reports of a communications blackout in Gaza due to a fuel shortage. CPJ urgently calls on the Israeli and Egyptian governments to allow humanitarian assistance, including fuel, to reconnect journalists in Gaza with the world.

In a deeply concerning development, Pal t el Group (the parent company of Palestinian internet service providers Paltel, Jawwal, and Hadara), among the few remaining service providers operational in Gaza, has announced a complete shutdown of communication services throughout the Gaza Strip, according to ABC News and BBC. This disruption, directly attributed to a severe fuel shortage, jeopardizes internet and phone connectivity, posing an extreme risk to the lives of journalists reporting in Gaza and their coverage, according to the same sources.

Since the Israel-Gaza war began, Gaza has experienced three major communication blackouts, each lasting between 24 to 48 hours: from October 27 to October 29, from October 31 to November 1, and from November 5 to 6.

Overall, internet traffic across Gaza decreased by over 80% in October, according to Access Now. However, this particular communication blackout could persist indefinitely unless fuel is allowed into Gaza, according to Access Now and Amnesty International.

According to the reports, the earlier internet shutdowns disrupted media coverage and traumatized journalists in Gaza and their counterparts worldwide after they lost contact with their colleagues. Local and international media channels have reported that the shutdown prevented news organizations from reaching reporters on the ground, severely hampering their ability to cover the war. F reelance journalists who use their social media accounts to cover the war coverage are particularly vulnerable as they lack institutional support to ensure their safety and amplify their voices.

“By withholding fuel from Gaza, the Israeli government is preventing journalists in Gaza from providing the world with updates on the war, leaving the international community vulnerable to deadly propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “The Israeli and Egyptian governments must immediately allow fuel into the Gaza Strip as part of the essential humanitarian assistance needed in the region.”

CPJ previously expressed deep concern over the communication shutdown on October 27 and, along with over 200 organizations, had called for the United Nations Security Council, the U.N. Secretary-General, and all world leaders to facilitate an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and permit the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. The UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has called for the “protection of telecom infrastructure and the essential right to communicate.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Obama’s Fake Concern for Autoworkers and the 2009 Bailout

Paul Street — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 05:56:24 +0000

I want here to say a bit about four things: (1) what a disingenuous piece of work Barack “Trans Pacific Partnership” Obama is; (2) how gullible some left-identified folks can still be about Obama’s sorry neoliberal ass; (3) the real history of the 2009 federal US auto industry bailout; (4) what humanity really needs beyond More

The post Obama’s Fake Concern for Autoworkers and the 2009 Bailout appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Paul Street.

CPJ joins letter of concern about Kosovo’s banning of Serbian reporter Svetlana Vukmirovic

Committee to Protect Journalists — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 13:38:37 +0000

The Committee to Protect Journalists and 10 civil society organizations wrote to Kosovo authorities on Tuesday, August 1, to request an explanation as to why reporter Svetlana Vukmirovic working for public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia is not allowed to enter Kosovo to do her work.

Vukmirovic has been prevented from entering Kosovo on multiple occasions since 2018. The latest case occurred on May 1, 2023, when Vukmirovic was again banned from entering the territory of Kosovo with the explanation that she is considered a threat to public order, internal security, public health, or international relations.

In three letters addressed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ombudsperson Institution, CPJ and other organizations called on Kosovo authorities to ensure that the signed agreements between Serbia and Kosovo allowing freedom of movement are respected without exception.

Read the full letters here, here, and here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Right-wing extremism means homeschooling surge in US should concern us all

Chrissy Stroop — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 14:18:21 +0000

With the book-banning right targeting mainstream schools, homeschooling is surging. More regulation is needed

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Chrissy Stroop.

Climate change litigation surges, driven by concern over rights violations: UNEP report

Anton Uspensky — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 18:42:53 +0000

Climate-related court cases around the world are growing fast, and on Thursday the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) together with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, highlighted the trend in their new Global Climate Litigation Report.

Andrew Raine, Head of the Frontiers in Environmental Law Unit of UNEP, spoke to UN News’s Anton Uspensky about the report’s findings, which show cases are surging in the Global South with human rights emerging as a powerful driver behind climate litigation.

This content originally appeared on UN News - Global perspective Human stories and was authored by Anton Uspensky.

India sells arms to junta while claiming concern over crisis in Myanmar

By RFA Burmese — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 20:20:00 +0000

Companies in India are supplying weapons to Myanmar’s junta while Prime Minister Narendra Modi expresses concern about the political crisis in Myanmar on the international stage, observers said Monday, highlighting the two-faced nature of the strategy.

Indian arms manufacturer Bharat Electronics Limited, or BEL, transferred military equipment worth more than US$5.1 million to Myanmar’s army or known Myanmar arms brokers Alliance Engineering Consultancy and Mega Hill General Trading over a period of six months from November 2022 to April 2023, the rights group Justice for Myanmar reported in June.

The military equipment included metallic sonar domes; transducers and gaskets for the domes to be used on frigates, warships or submarines; directing gear systems; technical documents; various items for radio transmission or radar equipment; and manpack radios for battlefield communication.

Justice for Myanmar called the shipments “part of a pattern of Indian support for the Myanmar military and its domestic arms industry” and called on India’s allies to use their leverage to “pressure India to stop the supply of arms and dual use goods and technology” to the regime, including during Modi’s state visits to the U.S. and France this year.

The weapons sales come even as Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden issued a joint statement following their meeting at the White House on June 22 expressing concern about the worsening rights situation in Myanmar and calling for the release of the country’s political prisoners.

A Hexacopter drone used in unmanned aerial surveillance manufactured by Bharat Electronics is displayed during a defense exhibition in Bangalore, Dec. 2021. Indian arms manufacturer Bharat Electronics Limited transferred military equipment worth more than US$5.1 million to Myanmar’s army over a period of six months from November 2022 to April 2023, the rights group Justice for Myanmar reported in June. Credit: Manjunath Kiran/AFP

Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, pointed out the hypocrisy of India selling weapons to the junta with one hand while saying it is concerned with the situation in Myanmar on the other.

He noted that India has stayed neutral amid the ongoing conflict in Myanmar and neglected or even arrested refugees who have fled fighting across its border.

“But on the international arena, when making a statement as a democratic country, it uses the terms ‘democracy and human rights,’” he told RFA. “It doesn’t make any sense. It is a government that is indirectly supporting the crimes committed by the Myanmar military by willfully ignoring them.”

Justice for Myanmar’s report came on the heels of one released in May by U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews, who said the junta had imported at least US$1 billion in arms and raw materials to manufacture weapons between the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat and December 2022.

Rights groups say the junta is using such weapons against the people of Myanmar, including to attack the armed resistance and civilians who oppose its rule.

While Russia, China and Singapore were the major sources by far, the U.N. report found that Indian entities, including state-owned entities, had transferred US$51 million in arms and related materials to the junta over the same period. That followed Russia’s US$406 million, China’s US$267 million, and Singapore’s US$254 million.

Selling weapons for war crimes

Ko Mike, a spokesman for the Blood Money Campaign, a collective of Myanmar activists campaigning to stop revenues reaching the junta, said that Indian companies selling weapons to Myanmar are abetting war crimes.

“They are supporting killings by a terrorist group [the junta] that is committing the worst crimes in the world,” he said. “Sometime in the future, it will be necessary to do something internationally about accountability [for such entities].”

Ye Tun, a political analyst, said that Modi appears to believe the junta is responsible for maintaining stability in Myanmar.

“So if you [maintain stability] by using weapons, India will sell weapons to Myanmar’s military [to support such alleged efforts].”

Prior to the sales detailed in Justice for Myanmar’s latest report, the group noted that Indian state-owned arms producer Yantra India Limited shipped multiple 122mm howitzer barrels to the junta in October 2022 in an apparent breach of international law.

A model of 'Akash' surface to air missile developed by Bharat Electronics is displayed during a defense exhibition in Bangalore, Dec. 2021. Credit: Manjunath Kiran/AFP

The Indian government has so far ignored calls by civil society organizations and the people of Myanmar, including the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, and failed to comply with U.N. resolutions and its responsibilities under international law, said Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadana Maung.

Radio Free Asia attempted to contact the Indian Embassy in Myanmar by email for comment but received no response. Calls to junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun, seeking comment on the claims, went unanswered Monday.

Regional stability at risk

Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, called it “normal” for India to assist its neighbor.

“India can stand on its own two feet and cooperate with anyone it wants to,” he said. “India has taken Myanmar as a partner ... [because] Myanmar is the best country for India to cooperate with on the security of the Indian Ocean. So, it is normal for India to cooperate with Myanmar.”

Myanmar junta’s soldiers participate in a parade to mark Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw in 2021.Indian arms sales to Myanmar are supporting the military regime’s war crimes and the international community must act to stop them, rights activists and analysts said Monday, in response to a new report detailing weapons shipments to the junta in recent months. Credit: Reuters

But NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw said that as the world’s largest democracy, India is expected to embrace democratic values and not prop up regimes that oppress their own people.

“We hope that India will try to understand the will of the people of Myanmar and help them to fulfill that will,” he said.

If India instead continues to support the junta, he said, there will be no resolution to the conflict in Myanmar and the stability of the region will be at risk.

Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Romanian Teachers’ Strike Prompts Sympathy, Concern From Students And Parents

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Tue, 23 May 2023 14:52:34 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Chinese journalist Shangguan Yunkai detained over corruption coverage

Committee to Protect Journalists — Tue, 09 May 2023 17:13:50 +0000

Taipei, May 9, 2023—Chinese authorities must immediately release and drop all charges against journalist Shangguan Yunkai and stop persecuting members of the press in retaliation for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

On April 20, police in the central city of Ezhou arrested Shangguan at a tea house on the charge of “selling fake medicine,” according to news reports and a source familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

However, that person and the human rights website China Political Prisoner Concern said the arrest was retaliation for Shangguan’s reporting. The day before his arrest, he published an article about police in an Ezhou courtroom beating a plaintiff in 2021.

“Authorities in Ezhou, China, must immediately drop the apparent retaliatory charges against journalist Shangguan Yunkai and release him unconditionally,” said CPJ’s China representative, Iris Hsu. “Detaining a journalist who covers corruption allegations shows that officials in Ezhou have no intention of abiding by Beijing’s anti-graft campaign.”

The charge against Shangguan relates to advertisements for a balm at the end of the journalist’s articles, according to those news reports and a video by his son Shangguan Xuke, who said the balm was not meant for medical use.

Shangguan has covered alleged corruption for the state-run newspaper Legal Daily and his microblogs “Life in Queensland” and “Huangxiao Native Egg” in and around Hubei province for more than 20 years, on topics such as forgery by agricultural authorities in the Nanbu county of Sichuan Province and the government’s forced demolition of private properties in Ezhou.

According to Shangguan’s blog on Weibo, where he has about 24,000 followers, his articles have led to anti-graft authorities reprimanding at least 200 officials.

CPJ contacted the Ezhou public security bureau for comment via messaging app but did not immediately receive any reply.

China is the second largest jailer of journalists as of December 1, 2022, with at least 43 journalists behind bars, according to CPJ’s annual prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

UN rights expert raises concern over training programs, forced labor in Tibet

By Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan — Mon, 01 May 2023 20:06:36 +0000

A U.N. human rights expert has expressed concern that allegations of mandatory vocational training programs and labor transfer in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region may affect the human rights of Tibetans, similar to the situation with Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Tomoya Obokata, a Japanese who is the U.N.’s special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, and other U.N. experts that the programs are being used to undermine Tibetan religious, linguistic and cultural identity, and to monitor and politically indoctrinate Tibetans.

In a release from the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on April 27, Obokata and the others warned that the programs could lead to forced labor.

Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have reportedly been “transferred” from their traditional rural lives to low-skilled and low-paid employment since 2015, according to the U.N. expert.

Obokata said he was waiting for a translation of a response from the Chinese government, which previously has said that participation in vocational training programs is voluntary.

“But in practice, and according to the information that we receive from various sources, often times they [Tibetans] do not have any choice, so they have no choice but to accept it,” Obokata, a professor of international human rights law, told Radio Free Asia on April 28.

“I’m not saying that all instances are involuntary because there is no clear evidence to that regard. … But in a similar way as with the Xinjiang situation, certain indicators of forced labor may be present, so that’s why we are asking the government to provide a clarification and answer at this stage.”

After Chinese authorities began arbitrarily detaining Uyghurs in “re-education” camps in Xinjiang in 2017, some of the Uyghurs were subjected to forced labor and other rights abuses. The Chinese said the camps were vocational training centers meant to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the restive region.

In a 20-page report issued in August 2022, Obokata said that Uyghur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang were being used as forced labor in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing under two state-mandated systems where minorities are detained and subjected to work placements or where surplus rural laborers.

Moving rural workers

Similar measures exist in neighboring Tibet, where an extensive labor transfer program has shifted Tibetan farmers, herders and other rural workers into low-skilled and low-paid jobs, according to the report.

The Chinese government restricts Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity as Buddhists.

Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at wiping out their national and cultural identity.

“Tibetans are being drawn away from sustainable livelihoods in which they have traditionally had a comparative advantage, such as wool and dairy production, and into low-paid, low-skilled work in manufacturing and construction,” the U.N. experts said in the news release.

They went on to say that Tibetans are transferred directly from training centers to new workplaces, though it’s unclear if they have consented to the jobs. But a lack of oversight makes it impossible to determine whether working conditions constitute forced labor, the experts said.

Obokata and the others raised concern that vocational training programs were “designed to promote a non-plural, mono-racial and mono-ethnic nation, in violation of the prohibition of racial discrimination under international human rights law.”

They called on China to provide details about measures in place for Tibetans to opt out of vocational training and labor transfer programs, to monitor the working conditions of Tibetans in their new places of employment, and to ensure respect for Tibetan religious, linguistic and cultural identity.

The U.N. experts also submitted a letter to the Chinese government expressing concerns about the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.

“We are seeing similar patterns in terms of the treatment, so that’s why we are raising our concern at this time for Tibetan people,” Obokata said.

Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan.

British government fends off growing concern over Chinese infiltration in London

By Amelia Loi for RFA Mandarin — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 19:03:01 +0000

The British police are investigating a number of alleged Chinese police stations in the country as it emerged that a businessman with ties to the Communist Party's United Front operations was photographed rubbing shoulders with then-Prime Minister Theresa May.

Faced with a barrage of questions in parliament, government ministers declined to comment in detail on a report in The Times newspaper about the alleged police stations, which Beijing says are offices to help overseas Chinese with various administrative affairs, but which human rights groups say are used to spy on dissidents and try to bring them back to China.

The Times report included a photo of May and businessman Lin Ruiyou, who has known ties with United Front officials that work to promote loyalty to Xi and spread his personal brand of political ideology, and overseas organizations loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.

“The latest reporting in The Times on the so-called overseas police stations is of course of great concern," Home Office spokesman Lord Sharpe of Epsom told the House of Lords on Thursday, calling the matter "sensitive."

"Investigations by the law enforcement community are ongoing," he said, confirming that the authorities are probing more than one of the alleged police stations.

"It is difficult for me to comment on ongoing matters, but ... yes, it is fair to say that there is more than just one," he added, but said the government is keen to eradicate transnational oppression by authoritarian governments on British soil.

The report comes out after the recent arrests of two men in New York for allegedly setting up an overseas branch of the Chinese government’s Ministry of Public Security in Manhattan that was eventually shut down by the authorities last year.

Beijing has shut down a number of the offices in the wake of a September 2022 report from the Spain-based Safeguard Defenders group listing dozens of such operations, sparking investigations and orders to shut down from governments around the world.

"Through our police forces and the intelligence agencies that work with them, we take a proactive approach to protecting individuals and communities from threats," Sharpe said. "Where we identify individuals who may be at heightened risk, we are front-footed in deploying security measures and guidance where necessary."

Shared address

Asked about the photo of Lin, a British citizen and key figure in a ruling Conservative Party Chinese constituency group, with Theresa May, Sharpe replied: "It is very difficult for any prominent politician of any party, within or outside government, to know precisely who is appearing in a selfie with them."

Lin, whose Croydon-based food delivery service All Eat was identified as sharing an address with an illegal Chinese police service station by Safeguard Defenders, has made multiple trips back to his home province of Fujian in recent years.

He presides over the U.K.-based Changle Overseas Chinese Association, for people who hail from the Changle district of Fujian's provincial capital Fuzhou.

He is mentioned in a Feb. 21, 2021, report on the official website of the Fuzhou Returned Overseas Chinese Association as taking part in an event organized by the United Front Work Department of the Changle district Communist Party Committee, which brought overseas Chinese on school visits to make charitable donations towards students' education.

Lin also appears in a Jan. 9, 2020, report on China’s Sohu.com internet platform, taking part in a charity event to donate to people in need, accompanied by Zheng Jun, a member of the local United Front Work Committee.

A keyword search for his name in Chinese on Thursday resulted in a number of similar news stories on Chinese official websites or media platforms dating back to 2019.

‘No reassurances’

Chris Philp, Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire had earlier faced questioning from members of parliament in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Yvette Cooper of the opposition Labour Party said Lin's role as a Conservative Party fundraiser "raise[d] vital national security concerns," and that the government had failed to deliver an update on the Chinese police stations, as they had promised months ago.

"We have heard nothing—no reports of arrests and no reassurance that these operations have been closed down," Cooper said.

"Instead, we are told that one key individual has been vice-chairman of the Chinese group fundraising for the Conservative Association in the City of London, and has attended party-organized events with two out of the last three Conservative prime ministers," she said.

Philp said Chinese infiltration via police stations wasn't confined to the United Kingdom, however. "We are aware of approximately 100 alleged stations of the kind we are discussing around the world," he said, mentioning the recent arrests in New York.

Hong Kong activists based in the U.K. have repeatedly warned that community groups in the country may have been infiltrated by people loyal to Beijing, posing potential threats to incoming migrants from Hong Kong under the British National Overseas visa scheme.

The British government says 160,700 people have emigrated to the United Kingdom on the scheme, which includes a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship, since its launch in 2021, which prompted retaliation from Beijing.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Amelia Loi for RFA Mandarin.

Antibiotics Found in Fast Food Meat Create Massive Public Health Concern

Vins — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:53:17 +0000

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian published a collaborative investigation on November 21, 2022, exposing major fast food companies for their use of beef suppliers that employ antibiotics…

The post Antibiotics Found in Fast Food Meat Create Massive Public Health Concern appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

No, Singapore chief justice did not raise concern over ‘hijacking’ of Indian judiciary

Kinjal — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 11:28:01 +0000

A video clip of a man delivering a speech has been making the rounds on social media. Here, the speaker expresses his concern at the sharp rise in theocratic, traditionalist judges who consider religion, and not the constitution, to be the source of the law. He adds that this is the first phase of a two-part strategy to establish a Hindu Rashtra by 2047. According to him, instead of discarding the Constitution, the goal is to present it as a Hindu document. He believes the first step for this is to appoint judges who see theological texts as the source of the law, instead of the Constitution. And the second phase, which he says is set to start now, is to appoint judges who will identify the source. He predicts that once this goal is achieved in the next 24 years, India will become a Hindu theocracy by re-interpreting the same Constitution. He adds that the idea is to hijack the judiciary and establish a Hindu theocracy. Later in the video, the speaker says that the present government, whose explicit mission is to establish a Hindu Rashtra, should not be allowed any role in judicial appointments, and the collegium system must be protected.

While sharing this video, it is being claimed that the man in the viral clip is Sundaresh Menon, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Singapore. Bharat Rashtra Samithi party member Faisal Khan tweeted this video with the same claim. (Archived link)

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Singapore, Sundaresh Menon, speaks on how the Constitution of India could be hijacked by Chaddi judges to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra. #BanRSS #shameonmodi #ShameOnBJP #ModiInsultsIndia #BJPFailsIndia pic.twitter.com/wt5ypAwyql

— Faisal Khan (@FaisalKhanBRS) March 6, 2023

West Delhi Congress Seva Dal also tweeted this video with a similar claim. (Archived link)

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Singapore , Sundaresh Menon, speaks on how the Constitution of India could be hijacked by Biased Judges to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra. pic.twitter.com/wwB2bvsn6s

— West Delhi Congress Sevadal (@SevadalWDL) March 9, 2023

Several other users also amplified the footage as remarks made by Sundaresh Menon on Twitter and Facebook.

Fact Check

While replying to the viral tweets, some users commented that the individual seen in the video was not Chief Justice of Singapore Sundaresh Menon, but Mohan Gopal, a legal educationist. It is worth noting that Gopal also served as former director of the National Law School of India (NLSIU), Bangalore. Apart from this, the logo of ‘Live Law’ can also be seen in the video being circulated on social media.

Using this information, Alt News examined the Twitter account of LiveLaw. On February 18, LiveLaw Hindi tweeted a link to one of its articles which quoted Gopal as saying, “The number of judges who are traditionalist, and theocratic, and who find the source of law in religion (rather than the constitution), has sharply increased.” The article mentions that Gopal, a well-known legal educationist, made these remarks while giving a speech on “Executive interference in judicial appointments” organized by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR). The report states, “In his speech, Dr. Gopal raised concerns about the appointment of judges with political bias. He urged the collegium to protect the institution by consciously appointing judges committed to the constitution alone.”

संविधान की तुलना में धर्म में कानून का स्रोत खोजने वाले धार्मिक न्यायाधीशों में तेजी से वृद्धि हुई है : डॉक्टर मोहन गोपाल #DrMohanGopal #Constitution https://t.co/hRJK9d8uU4

— Live Law Hindi (@LivelawH) February 18, 2023

Readers can watch the speech in its entirety in a video posted by Live Law dated February 21. Scenes from the viral video appear here after the 11:33 mark.

Next, Alt News also performed a Google search on Singapore Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon. This led us to an Aaj Tak report dated February 4, stating that the Supreme Court celebrated its foundation day after 73 years with Singapore’s Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon attending as the chief guest. Live Law reported that Sundaresh Menon witnessed the proceedings of the Supreme Court of India, which was headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud. However, there is no mention here of him giving a speech about the hijacking of the judiciary or the two-part strategy for the creation of a Hindu Rashtra.

To sum up, concerns over the hijacking of the Supreme Court to create a Hindu Rashtra was actually raised by legal educationist Mohan Gopal, not by Singapore’s Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon. It is also worth noting that Twitter handles like ‘@miss_roh08’ and ‘@Gasi_Nat’ later replied to their own tweets and confirmed that the speaker in the viral video was, in fact, Mohan Gopal.

The post No, Singapore chief justice did not raise concern over ‘hijacking’ of Indian judiciary appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kinjal.

Right-Wing Media’s ‘Grooming’ Rhetoric Has Nothing to Do With Concern for Children

Olivia Riggio — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 17:37:29 +0000

Tucker Carlson (Fox News, 9/19/22) invents an imaginary phenomenon in which young children are being trained in sexual practices by elementary schools. So whose “sexual fantasies” is he really talking about here?

In front of a graphic of fluffy pink handcuffs and “Kink for Kids” spelled out in blocks and crayon font, a red-faced Tucker Carlson (Fox News, 9/19/22) ranted about the story of a transgender Canadian high school teacher whose photos went viral on social media for wearing comically large prosthetic breasts to work.

This is a specialty of Carlson’s: taking one weird example of an individual’s behavior and attributing it to an entire movement or community to stoke moral panic. Carlson declared:

It’s hard to believe this is happening, but we’re sad to tell you it’s not just happening in Canada. You see versions of it everywhere, including in this country. And to be clear what this is, children being used as props in the sexual fantasies of adults.

From this single Canadian teacher’s cartoonishly inappropriate outfit, Carlson leaps—to teachers on social media talking about how they validate children when they disclose their sexualities and gender identities to them.

Then he leaps back to talking about pedophilia. This conflation is where the danger lies, both for LGBTQ individuals, and children who are actual survivors of sexual abuse.

What ‘grooming’ is—and isn’t

The term “grooming” has become a favorite of anti-LGBTQ politicians and right-wing media. Carlson said in the segment:

Some people describe what was happening, it is grooming. We’re not exactly sure what that means. But if it’s sexually abusing children, yes, that is what’s happening.

In fact, we do know what grooming means. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) describes grooming as “manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught.” It involves isolating victims, gaining their trust, and desensitizing them to inappropriate touch, sex and other forms of abuse.

Teaching children that some kids have two moms, or that certain people identify with a gender that does not match the one assigned to them based on their body parts, is not grooming. Having a drag queen in theatrical makeup read books to them is not grooming.

Vince Everett Ellison, on Tucker Carlson Tonight (1/24/23) to talk about “endless lies,” claims Democrats “want you to castrate little boys and cut off the breasts of little girls.”

Age-appropriate discussions about bodies, boundaries and relationships have been a regular part of school curriculums. It’s the introduction of LGBTQ-related topics in these discussions that sparked hysterical headlines and TV rants. A Carlson guest, author and documentarian Vince Everett Ellison—whose latest film is about how voting Democrat will keep you from Heaven—said in a January screed (Fox News, 1/24/23):

This is a party that believes in this transgender grooming thing to a point where…they want you to castrate little boys and cut off the breasts of little girls, and they’re telling people they’re not going to be held responsible for this.

Not only is the depiction of young children being castrated and receiving mastectomies graphic, it’s also untrue. If “little” children—i.e., those entering puberty—express a desire to transition, doctors may put them on reversible puberty blockers (which have been shown to reduce suicidal ideation in trans youth). Surgeries for youth under the age of 18 are relatively rare, and generally only done with the consent of the patient, their guardian and a doctor. And of course the language aired on Fox isn’t only meant to suggest child abuse; it also deliberately denies the gender identity of the young person requesting the gender-affirming surgery.

‘Your kids are ours’

Fox‘s Jesse Watters (9/23/22) interviews Mario Presents about his “Groom Dogs, Not Kids” T-shirt.

Fox‘s Jesse Watters, towards the start of his September 23 show, discussed the story of a Florida teacher convicted of sexually assaulting her 14-year-old student (Media Matters, 9/23/22). He moved on to bemoaning Covid school closures interrupting children’s education, then rounded out his segment by arguing that educating children about LGBTQ issues, like Critical Race Theory, is a form of Democratic indoctrination:

Sex and CRT become the new math and science. Kids are learning racism instead of reading. Do you think parents are pissed off about this? Of course, why wouldn’t they be? But, when they speak up, Democrats tell them to sit down, shut up and stay out of education: “Your kids are ours.”

To help him make his argument, Watters brought on Mario Presents, a “concerned uncle” who condemned LGBTQ education at a California school board meeting. Watters asks Presents about his shirt—which read, “Groom Dogs, Not Kids.”

“We love a pretty pet, but we don’t love kids being sexual,” Presents replied. “We don’t love…confusing them. We want kids to just be themselves.”

Presents also praised the work of “Gays Against Grooming” a conspiracy theorist, far-right operative -run anti-trans group masquerading as a grassroots organization (Media Matters, 2/7/23).

Validating a child’s stated identity, preferred name and pronouns is not “grooming.” There is, of course, nothing more inherently sexual about being homosexual or transgender than there is about being heterosexual and cisgender.

Dehumanizing myths

Julia Serano (Medium, 11/29/22): “The ‘grooming’ charge—as well as the related accusation that we are ‘sexualizing children‘—insinuates that LGBTQ+ people (but not cis-hetero people) are inherently sexually ‘contaminating’ and ‘corrupting.'”

But these far-right tropes aren’t new. Baselessly accusing a group of people of one of the worst crimes imaginable is a pretty surefire way to dehumanize them. Stigmatizing queer people by claiming they are sexually deviant is an age-old tactic. As Julia Serano notes in her blog for Medium (11/29/22), the “groomer” accusation recalls late 19th-century pseudoscience that claimed stigmatized people—like queer people, sex workers, poor people and disabled people—were evolving backwards, and that the mere exposure to them could make you evolve backwards, too.

The idea that merely learning about LGBTQ people and identities “causes” children to become queer has also been debunked. As Serano points out, several peer-reviewed studies have debunked the concept of transgender “social contagion,” an idea coined by a trans-skeptical parent online in 2016 and elaborated in a 2018 paper, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD),” by Lisa Littman. Flaws in the paper were called out in three peer-reviewed studies (Restar, 2020; Ashley, 2020; Pitts-Taylor, 2020), and the journal that published it later issued an apology and correction (PLoS, 3/19/19).

Serano also draws on earlier research to point to the likelihood that children like those in Littman’s study were most likely already trans or gender-diverse in some way, and seeking out access to information and support from peers similar to them. At least one study debunked the idea that same-sex attraction “spreads” among peer groups (Brakefield et al., 2014).

Serano also discusses the phenomenon of reduction of restraint. When a behavior is stigmatized, people who are inclined to engage in it are more likely to refrain:

In a 2017 essay, I argued that the current increased prevalence of trans people is akin to the increase in left-handedness (from 2% to 13%) during the 20th century once the stigma and punishment associated with being left-handed abated.

Hypocrisy and hatred

The incorrect use of the term “groomer” is rooted more in thinly veiling right-wing media’s anti-LGBTQ hatred than it is in an actual desire to protect children from sexual content—or other dangers. As Serano astutely summarized in her blog:

They also often use “grooming” in reference to completely non-sexual things, such as rainbow flags hanging in classrooms, efforts to accommodate trans students, or when schools have nondiscrimination policies protecting LGBTQ+ people. While anti-trans/LGBTQ+ campaigners may frame their interventions in terms of “safeguarding children,” they rarely if ever express similar concern over actual cases of grooming and [child sexual abuse], the overwhelming majority of which are perpetrated by cis-hetero men who are family members or close acquaintances of the child.

The issue clearly isn’t about discussions or experiences involving cis-heteronormative sexuality or gender. It’s queerness itself that’s believed to be perverted. The Murdoch empire demonstrates this.

A father bragging about taking his nine-year-old son to Hooters didn’t prompt concern from the New York Post (11/23/22) about sexualizing children, but rather an array of boob puns.

A New York Post article (11/23/22) profiled a British father who took his 9-year-old son to Hooters to celebrate his good grades. “Tit for tot?” the article begins, later describing the restaurant as a “ta-ta temple.” It highlighted both critical and supportive responses to the stunt.

Teaching kids about gender diversity causes hosts like Fox’s Laura Ingraham to beat their chests in preparation for a culture war (Fox News, 4/7/22), and parents taking their kids to a drag show “normalize[s] the sexualization of kids” (10/19/22), yet this story evokes nothing more than a few lighthearted boob puns from Murdoch’s New York Post.

Meanwhile, children’s actual physical safety takes a backseat to “Don’t Say Gay” hysteria on Fox. Media Matters (4/1/22) documented Fox hosts melting down over Disney’s public opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in at least 53 segments over a week in 2022, accusing the company of grooming, indoctrinating and sexualizing children.

To compare, in December, a bipartisan bill supporting the welfare of child sex abuse victims was introduced in the House. Twenty-eight Republicans—including Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have both referred to pro-LGBTQ advocates as “groomers” (CPR News, 11/22/22; Sacramento Bee, 11/25/22)—voted against the now-passed Respect for Child Survivors Act, which seeks to improve how the FBI handles cases of child sexual abuse (Newsweek, 12/22/22). FAIR’s Nexis search of the legislation’s name turned up no results on Fox News in the weeks preceding and following the voting.

The New England Journal of Medicine (5/19/22) found that gun violence had become the No. 1 cause of death in children and adolescents in 2020. A Nexis search of Fox transcripts found no mentions of that report in the week following its release. Only after the Uvalde elementary school shooting, which occurred on May 24, was the report mentioned in passing (Fox News, 5/29/22, 5/30/22).

Centrist media complicity

Centrist and neoliberal media have also been slow to call anti-LGBTQ advocates’ bluff. While the New York Times (4/7/22, 5/31/22) has published op-eds that confront the term “groomer” as harmful to both the LGBTQ community and victims of child abuse, its news section continues to both-sides the issue, quoting Republican use of the term with little critique.

In a piece that sterilely chronicled right-wing political attacks on LGBTQ rights, the Times (7/22/22) reported:

Officials and television commentators on the right have accused opponents of some of those new restrictions of seeking to “sexualize” or “groom” children. Grooming refers to the tactics used by sexual predators to manipulate their victims, but it has become deployed widely on the right to brand gay and transgender people as child molesters, evoking an earlier era of homophobia.

Washington Post (4/5/22): “In the charged debate over what and how children should learn about sexual orientation and gender identity, some mainstream Republicans are tagging those who defend such lessons as ‘groomers,’ claiming that proponents of such teaching want children primed for sexual abuse.”

The article later went on to briefly cite a survey by the Trevor Project that showed the staggering suicidality rates of gender non-conforming youth. However, the piece ultimately treated the issue as a political game, outlining Republican tactics and the risks they face of losing centrist votes due to homophobia. It ended with a quote by Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, who is calling for legislation that allows parents to sue school districts that host drag shows (despite no evidence of any district doing so). “We’re taking the first step today to protecting children,” Dixon said, getting the last word.

At the Washington Post (4/5/22), the article “Teachers Who Mention Sexuality Are ‘Grooming’ Kids, Conservatives Say” devoted its first 12 paragraphs to coverage of anti-trans bigots using “groomer” rhetoric. As FAIR (4/12/22) pointed out:

It barely matters that the Post brought in some “experts” later to offer the “other side”—that actually talking about these things in fact helps curtail sexual abuse (which in schools primarily happens at the hands of heterosexual male teachers, noted all the way down in the 37th paragraph of the Post article) and bullying against LGBTQ+ kids. In giving the GOP the headline and the (extraordinarily lengthy) lead, Natanson and Balingit gave a bigoted and dangerous campaign the right to frame the story as a debate with two somehow comparable sides.

Other outlets are sometimes even worse. NY1 (6/16/22) platformed a Queens council member who called drag queen story hours in schools “grooming.” The Salt Lake Tribune (10/21/22) dedicated a whole article to outlining Utah politicians’ moral panic about drag shows. It quoted write-in Washington County clerk/auditor candidate Patricia Kent in the unhinged headline: “They are grooming our children for immoral satanic worship.”

The real danger

NBC‘s Today (5/9/22) on “grooming”: “Misusing the term also puts people, particularly children and teenagers, at risk of being groomed and eventually victimized.”

LGBTQ people are nearly four times more likely to be victims of violent crime—including sexual assault—than their non-LGBTQ counterparts. They’re nine times more likely than non-LGBTQ people to be victims of violent hate crimes. The November 2022 mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs is only one recent example of this danger.

Misusing the term “groomer” is also counterproductive to helping real victims of child sexual abuse. While it didn’t directly address LGBTQ education, a Psychology Today piece (4/10/22) asserted that referring to Disney movies, sex education and other sexual content as “grooming” is clinically inaccurate, and has the potential to make it “more difficult to detect and identify actual manipulative behaviors and prevent actual sexual offending.”

NBC’s Today (5/9/22) published a laudable piece on the topic based on an interview with Grace French, a former dancer and gymnast whom USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar groomed and molested. She explained why careless use of the term is harmful to survivors like her:

It’s so incredibly important to use this term correctly, because if we don’t understand it—and we have these assumptions about what it can or can’t be—then it’s harder and harder for grooming to be identified, and perpetrators are going to be able to get more access to children and to victims.

The New York Times (5/31/22) echoed this sentiment with a guest essay from a survivor, who concluded:

If we can’t agree that the use of these words is sacred and worth protecting from daily politics, we are telling one another that our deepest, most intimate, heart-wrenching wounds are empty—and that we may as well be, too.

Conservative politicians’ and right-wing media’s reckless use of the term “grooming” is intentionally inaccurate and dehumanizing. It not only harms LGBTQ people, but also the children these figures claim to be fighting to protect.

The post Right-Wing Media’s ‘Grooming’ Rhetoric Has Nothing to Do With Concern for Children appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Olivia Riggio.

CPJ, RSF send letter expressing concern over Twitter policies

Erik Crouch — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000

Twitter Executive Team

January 11, 2023

Sent via Twitter

Dear Twitter Executive Team,

As Twitter continues its transition under new ownership and engages with a new CEO, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) are writing to express concern over recent developments and to outline a series of considerations that will be critical for Twitter’s integrity and the basic human right to freely impart and receive information.

Our organizations are alarmed by the rapid deterioration of basic human rights standards and responsible platform governance that are contributing to a hostile environment for journalists, which could put them in physical danger and directly threaten media freedom more broadly. This is evident not only in the dissolution of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council and human rights team, but most critically in the actions and abrupt and arbitrary changes to rules and policies based on the CEO’s personal whims and preferences. Overall, Twitter’s recent steps threaten the public’s right to access important information about events that affect their everyday lives. This runs counter to the very nature of the platform.

According to Twitter’s own data and analysis, 94% of people on the platform “express interest in current events” and, according to the same data, users are continuously and overwhelmingly sharing and seeking news on the platform. This includes vital information, for example concerning extreme weather and public health concerns, which are critical for daily decision making. It is primarily journalists who diligently report on, verify, contextualize, and humanize such facts and developments.

No one wants to be on a social media platform that endangers or censors them. As a critical communication tool in both open and repressive countries, Twitter must play a constructive role in ensuring that journalists and the public at large are able to receive and impart information without fear of reprisal. In order to protect press freedom and people’s right to be informed, CPJ and RSF make the following recommendations:

Twitter should immediately implement transparent corporate policies anchored in the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, bringing its policies in line with international human rights standards.
Twitter’s policies should be crafted and communicated in a transparent manner with input from affected constituencies and implemented consistently, not arbitrarily or based on the company leadership’s personal preferences, perceptions, and frustrations.
To secure input on content moderation policies and product development from affected communities, Twitter should reinstate the Trust and Safety Council. The reinstatement of the council—an advisory group comprised of civil society organizations and experts of which CPJ and RSF are longstanding members—should be complemented with the reestablishment of a robust human rights team.
Twitter should preserve and update its annual Transparency Report, a valuable tool for public accountability that reveals legal data requests and content removal efforts by governments as well as the company’s responses. Such requests often reflect attempts to censor information and penalize particular individuals, including many journalists. This is particularly important in the context of the intensifying criminalization of journalism evident in the increased legal harassment of reporters and the record numbers of journalists currently behind bars worldwide.

The points listed above constitute the absolute minimum steps necessary to reset Twitter’s relationship and credibility with journalists, the media freedom community, and the vast majority of users on the platform who cherish factual information and receiving and imparting news. We respectfully request that Twitter’s new leadership and executive team act on these recommendations. We stand prepared to provide further input individually and as part of the broader human rights community.

Sincerely,

Jodie Ginsberg
President
Committee to Protect Journalists

Christophe Deloire
Secretary-General
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

‘Why Are These Conflicts Allowed?’ Corporate Giving to Group Tied to Supreme Court Sparks Concern

Mr. Jon Queally (admin) — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 20:31:27 +0000

Both alarm and concern were expressed Saturday in response to new reporting about a charitable group with close ties to the U.S. Supreme Court that has been soliciting and accepting donations from corporate interests and far-right activists with cases before the court.

The New York Timesexposé focused on the activities and fundraising of the Supreme Court Historical Society, a nonprofit that claims its mission is "dedicated to the collection and preservation" of the Court's history.

While the group refused to disclose its donors to the Times, reporters from the newspaper determine that much of the funding came from powerful companies like Chevron, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, and Facebook as well as anti-abortion activists like Rev. Rob Schenck.

According to the newspaper:

The society has raised more than $23 million over the last two decades. Because of its nonprofit status, it does not have to publicly disclose its donors—and declined when asked to do so. But The New York Times was able to identify the sources behind more than $10.7 million raised since 2003, the first year for which relevant records were available.
At least $6.4 million—or 60 percent—came from corporations, special interest groups, or lawyers and firms that argued cases before the court, according to an analysis of archived historical society newsletters and publicly available records that detail grants given to the society by foundations. Of that, at least $4.7 million came from individuals or entities in years when they had a pending interest in a federal court case on appeal or at the high court, records show.

In the case of Chevron, the oil giant actively gave to the society even as it had a pending climate litigation working its way through the court.

In response to the new revelations, public interest attorney Steven Donzinger, who was himself targeted by Chevron for his work aimed at holding the company to account for its polluting activities in Ecuador, said the implications were "horrifying."

"Why are these conflicts allowed?" asked Donzinger.

Others quoted by the Times said the effort by people like Rev. Schenck, who admits to using the charitable group as a way to get other anti-abortion activists closer to the justices, creates a clear conflict of interest.

Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor who once served as solicitor general in the Reagan administration and counts himself a donor to the Historical Society, told the newspaper was so "horrified" by Schenck's behavior that he may no longer give.

"It's disgusting," Fried said. "Many of the people who contribute have the same reasons I do. You go to a cocktail party and support a good cause. But it turns out that for some people it's not that innocent."

While the Times notes that the Historical Society is "ostensibly independent of the judicial branch of government," the reality is that "the two are inextricably intertwined," with court justices serving as chair of the board and hosting gala events where exclusive access is reportedly part of the allure.

The left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said the reporting raises "significant questions" about the group which has "raked in millions—a significant chunk of it from groups with cases before the Court" over the last two decades.

Fix the Court, which acts as a watchdog organization for the U.S. Supreme Court, said the justification for the Historical Society's existence just doesn't hold water.

\u201cThere should not be an organization in existence that, via donations, gives people direct access to the justices.\n\nYou want to \u201cpreserve #SCOTUS history\u201d?\n\nHire a curatorial staff. Don\u2019t run a pay-for-play.\u201d
— Fix the Court (@Fix the Court) 1672489256

And Gabe Roth, the group's executive director, told the Times that if money was an issue for funding such a project it would be the best solution—one free of ethical concerns—for Congress to simply appropriate the money needed to maintain the history of the Court.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Mr. Jon Queally (admin).

Concern grows over Tibetan women detained amid COVID lockdowns

By Sangyal Kunchok — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 21:26:55 +0000

Concern is growing over the fate of four Tibetan women detained by China for protesting strict COVID lockdowns in Sichuan, with no word given yet by authorities concerning their whereabouts, according to Tibetan sources.

Zamkar, Kelsang Dolma, Dechen and Delha — all in their 20s and residents of Dardo (Kangding, in Chinese) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture —were arrested on December 5 and are now being held somewhere in Kardze, sources told RFA.

“Their exact location is still unknown, but we have heard that they are being given political re-education sessions by the Chinese government,” a source living in the region said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The women were taken into custody in their hometown after returning from Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu, where they had participated in anti-lockdown protests, RFA’s source said.

“They had also written a letter to their employer, complaining they hadn’t been paid while the lockdown was in force.

“Only one of them reported to the police when they were summoned for questioning, but the rest were taken from their homes and brought to the police station by force,” he added.

Also speaking to RFA, a Tibetan living in exile said the four women had worked at a Chinese-owned restaurant in Chengdu before their arrest. “But the Chinese authorities have refused to provide any information to their relatives regarding their arrest or current whereabouts,” the source said, citing contacts in the region.

Political prisoner’s sister also held

Chinese authorities in Tibet’s capital Lhasa have meanwhile arrested the sister of a Tibetan businessman now serving a life sentence on what rights groups and supporters call politically motivated charges of loan fraud, a Tibetan advocacy group said on Wednesday,

Gonpo Kyi, also called Gontey, was taken into custody on Dec. 19 after staging a peaceful protest in front of the Higher People’s Court in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, or ICT, said in a statement.

Elder sister of businessman Dorjee Tashi, jailed since 2010, Kyi had also staged a sit-in in June in front of the People’s Court calling for her brother’s release. Tashi had first been charged with secession, a charge frequently used by authorities to silence Tibetans promoting Tibetan national identity or criticizing Chinese rule in Tibet, ICT said.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sangyal Kunchok.

Fiji elections: Rabuka raises concern over results app glitch

Wansolwara — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 10:38:58 +0000

By Yasmine Wright-Gittins and Geraldine Panapasa of Wansolwara in Suva

The People’s Alliance Leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, will be writing to key Fiji general election figures expressing their dissatisfaction with the provisional results that followed the surprising technical glitch last night on the Fijian Elections Office app.

At 10.51pm on election day, the FEO released a statement on social media platform Facebook advising the public that provisional results were “temporarily on hold”. The post generated significant interest online.

Around 2.50am today, the FEO App was back online. However, the outcome that followed its resumption resulted in significant changes to the provisional results for contesting parties and candidates.

“It is something that is not within our control but we can engage activities that will allow us redress of what the situation is,” the statement said.

The People’s Alliance Leader Sitiveni Rabuka . . . Image: Wansolwara

“We will convey our feelings to the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) to say that we are not satisfied with the outcome after the break, the glitch, last night.

“Before that [glitch], we were ahead in the count. When the system came back on, there was a big change not in our favour. It is only natural for people to expect the so-called offended parties to have the right to redress.”

Supervisor Of Elections Mohammed Saneem revealed that the FEO found anomalies in its system when uploading data to the FEO results mobile app.

Mismatch of numbers
While the issue has now been fixed, Saneem said the technical glitch resulted in a mismatch of candidate numbers led to a misallocation of votes.

FIJI ELECTIONS 2022

“What happened last night caught us by surprise. It shouldn’t have happened. We had to take the app and results platform down because when we published the last results with 507 polling stations, we detected an anomaly in which we noted certain candidates had results that were 28,000 and 14,000 on the app,” Saneem said.

“To cure this, the FEO had to review the entire mechanism through which we were pushing out results.”

He said the results management system was an offline system and a staging laptop was used to transmit the results to the app and website.

Saneem explained that an interruption in the process midway through the transference of data from the stating laptop to FEO results app caused a mismatch of the identification of the candidate on the FEO app to the staging laptop, hence vote numbers changed for certain candidates who received a lot of votes on the app.

“We had to delete the data that had been published and then reupload data on the FEO app.”

At 7am, Saneem officially announced the closure of provisional results for the 2022 general election.

Data entry stage
He said they were now in the data entry stage of the final results, which would be available on Sunday.

“The database has been flushed. We will now enter fresh results. This is not the provisional results database, this is a separate database completely for final results,” he said.

“The provisional results will remain. Data entry will be done from the beginning.

“The number will be lesser [than] the provisional results but this only means that the results will be re-entered from zero.”

Meanwhile, Rabuka called for Fijians to remain calm as they continued to explore avenues for redress.

Published in collaboration with the University of the South Pacific journalism programme’s Wansolwara News.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Wansolwara.

Papuan solidarity group criticises NZ for ‘weak’ concern over Indonesian human rights abuses

APR editor — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 04:49:35 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

The solidarity group West Papua Action Aotearoa has criticised New Zealand for not “being stronger” over growing global concern about Indonesian human rights violations in West Papua, and contrasted this with Vanuatu’s leadership.

The group was reacting to the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review into Indonesia report in Geneva last week.

“Eight countries raised issues about human rights in West Papua and it is good to see our government among them,” said Catherine Delahunty, spokesperson for West Papua Action Aotearoa, in a statement.

READ MORE: Other West Papua human rights reports

New Zealand called for Indonesia to uphold, respect and promote human rights obligations in West Papua, but did not call for Indonesia to immediately allow the visit of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights.

Of the eight countries raising the issues only Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands made direct statements calling for the visit and Australia “made a better statement” than New Zealand, calling for Indonesia to “ensure access, including by credible, independent observers”.

“In the light of recent events including the concerns around the death of Filep Karma and the attacks on demonstrators in West Papua by the state, just calling for human rights to be upheld is clearly not enough,” said Delahunty.

“We need our government to speak out strongly in all UN Forums in support of the UN Commissioner of Human Rights proposed visit to West Papua.

“The Pacific Island Forum (PIF) has supported this call and our Foreign Minister has told our group that she supports it. However the UNHR review was an opportunity missed.

“Our foreign policy position should support the position of Vanuatu whose clear, sustained challenge to the violent colonisation of West Papua by Indonesia is admirable.

“Human rights will never be upheld when a regime occupies a country against the will of the people, and other Pacific countries need to demand better, starting with greater transparency over human rights violations, opening the borders to the UN High Commissioner and all international journalists.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

International concern grows over Chinese ‘police service stations’

By RFA Staff — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:20:00 +0000

More governments in Europe and the Americas have launched their own investigations into alleged Chinese secret police stations identified by a human rights group, with Germany and Chile looking into the reports and France “monitoring.”

The Madrid-based non-governmental organization, Safeguard Defenders, reported in September that China is carrying out "illegal, transnational policing operations" across five continents via 54 so-called police service stations in 30 countries.

Beijing said the stations were set up to provide essential services to Chinese citizens overseas. Safeguard Defenders says they are actually used to coerce emigrants into returning home to face criminal charges and to silence dissent abroad.

So far the Dutch and Irish governments have ordered China to shut down its overseas police service stations in their countries.

Some other European governments including the Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, are probing the allegations made by Safeguard Defenders.

"The German government does not tolerate the exercise of foreign state power, and accordingly, Chinese agencies do not have any executive authority on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany," the German Interior Ministry said.

German authorities are currently also having to deal with another case of foreign extraterritoriality, after Hanoi’s secret agents were accused of abducting a Vietnamese fugitive in Berlin “in broad daylight” and forcing him to return to Hanoi to face criminal charges.

Vietnam and China are among a handful of countries ruled by Communist Parties and their public security apparatuses operate similarly, although on a different scale.

The French Interior Ministry told Le Monde newspaper that its General Directorate for Internal Security “deploys substantial (and increasing) resources on monitoring activities of foreign services or state entities likely to come into conflict with our own sovereignty.”

In Chile, Interior Minister Carolina Tohá said an investigation is being carried out in the city of Viña del Mar, following a cabinet meeting during which the issue was raised.

Chinese state media reported on the opening of Fuzhou Police’s Overseas Service Station in Argentina, Feb. 18, 2022
CREDIT: Safeguard Defenders

‘A bigger picture’

In the United States, where an investigation into the reported overseas police service station in New York is ongoing, the government is taking a broader approach and looking at China’s alleged transnational repression and policing efforts in the whole of the country, rather than looking into a single case.

“That’s how we’d like foreign governments to respond to our report,” said Jing-jie Chen, one of the main investigators contributing to the Safeguard Defenders’ report ‘110 Overseas - Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild.’

110 is the police emergency number in China and some of the alleged police stations call themselves “110 Overseas Service Stations.”

“We would like the governments to look at a bigger picture, where the Chinese overseas policing should be seen as a method of China’s transnational repression,” Chen told RFA.

“It enables the Chinese state to reach out and silence dissidents, to spread fear and distrust among Chinese communities, and dissidents – despite having fled China – will not be able to continue their activism.”

“Foreign governments should take this issue seriously as this is not only protecting Chinese citizens but also defending democracy,” the researcher said.

Safeguard Defenders urged foreign governments to investigate China’s transnational repression tactics and underlying networks, “including in countries where no police service station appears to have been set up.”

“We call on them to set up adequate reporting and protection mechanisms for communities at risk, and coordinate information-sharing and adequate responses with like minded countries,” said Chen.

Jing-jie Chen is one of the authors of Safeguard Defenders' report on China’s overseas policing
CREDIT: RFA

Network of police stations

The 54 police stations identified in the Safeguard Defenders report were set up mostly by two Chinese Public Security Bureaus, from Qingtian County in Zhejiang province and Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province.

Government documents obtained via open sources however indicated that at least ten provinces in China were given mandates to set up similar operations, and the number of such police stations may be much higher.

“We found indications that other local police departments and public security bureaus [are] starting replicating this kind of overseas service station, like Wenzhou and Wuhai,” said Chen.

The Chinese government insisted that the purpose of the service centers is to help overseas Chinese nationals, who have not been able to return home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, “to have their driving licenses renewed and receive physical examinations.”

This has been rejected by Safeguard Defenders’ researchers, who pointed out that first reports of China’s police stations abroad were recorded in 2018, before any signs of COVID.

Between April 2021 and July 2022, Chinese police “persuaded” 230,000 alleged fugitives to return to China “voluntarily” while admitting not all their targets had committed any crimes, they quoted Chinese state media as saying.

While recognizing swift responses by European governments, the researchers said authorities in many other countries, including Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cambodia, Greece, Hungary, Japan, and Slovakia, to name a few, have yet to respond.

“In Nigeria, some journalists told us they have tried to cover the story but have been warned against it, even threatened,” Chen told RFA.

“Government agencies kept telling them the report’s findings are nonsense,” he added.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

Outside China, concern exceeds optimism as Xi Jinping begins third term as ruler

By Paul Eckert for RFA — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 18:42:11 +0000

The Chinese Communist Party wrapped up its 20th National Congress at the weekend, granting an unprecedented third five-year term to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. Xi, 69, is set to have his term as state president renewed by the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress in March. RFA asked experts on key aspects of China for their impressions of the congress and expectations of Chinese policies as Xi enters his third term after already a decade at the helm of the world's most populous nation.

China-U.S. relations and foreign policy

Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and author of The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime:

The bottom line is, the next five years is undoubtedly going to be more rocky for U.S.-China relations and for other countries with security concerns in the region. The issue is not that Xi Jinping really has nailed down the third term. It wasn't the case that his position was so precarious that he couldn't be aggressive before. However, it was unlikely that he was going to take moves to start some sort of conflagration that would extend into the party Congress. So the party Congress did serve as a restraint in so far as it was useful to wait until afterwards to take any more aggressive actions against Taiwan, for example. But the reason it didn't happen previously is largely based on China's military capabilities. Xi Jinping has been relatively clear since he took power in 2013, where his goals were in terms of promoting territorial integrity, is trying to define that and resolving a lot of these territorial issues, enhancing their position in Asia to regain their standing as a great power.

The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and a dominant position in Asia of which it had previously been decided not only by Xi, but by strategists, analysts and pundits ever since. [Former President Barack] Obama mentioned in his State of the Union that he wouldn't accept the United States as number two. It had already been decided that there was going to be conflict with the United States if China wanted to be number one in Asia. And so Xi Jinping has been on a trajectory, China has been on a trajectory that's been relatively consistent, that includes an improvement in military capabilities and thus a heavier reliance on those capabilities to achieve their goals over time. So with the frequency and intensity of competition and conflict, the general trend is that it increases over time.

Denny Roy, Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii and author of Return of the Dragon: Rising China and Regional Security:

At least two messages from the CCP’s 20th Party Congress bode ill for China-U.S. relations. The first is that a shift in the international balance of power creates an opportunity for China to push for increased global influence and standing. This is a continuation of a reassessment reached late in the Hu Jintao era, and which Xi Jinping has both embraced and acted upon.

There is no hint of regret about Chinese policies that caused alarm and increased security cooperation among several countries both inside and outside the region, no recognition that Chinese hubris has damaged China’s international reputation within the economically developed world, and no sense that damage control is necessary due to adverse international reaction to what has happened in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Instead, Beijing seems primed to continue to oppose important aspects of international law, to resist the U.S.-sponsored liberal order, and to extoll PRC-style fascism as superior to democracy. This orientation portends continued if not increasing friction with the United States on multiple fronts, both strategic and ideological.

Secondly, while the Congress expressed optimism about China’s present course, it evinced increased pessimism about China’s external environment, especially what Chinese leaders call growing hostility from the United States. Not long ago, PRC leaders perceived a “period of strategic opportunity” within which China could grow with minimal foreign opposition. Increasingly, however, PRC elites seem to believe that alleged U.S. “containment” of China will intensify now that the power gap between the two countries has narrowed and China has become a serious threat to U.S. “hegemony.”

PRC efforts to undercut U.S. strategic influence, especially in China’s near abroad, will continue. Beijing will try to draw South Korea out of the U.S. orbit, and may wish to do the same with Japan and Australia, although in those cases it may be too late. Beijing will continue to try to establish a Chinese sphere of influence in the East and South China Seas, while laying the groundwork for possible new spheres of influence in the Pacific Islands, Africa and Central Asia.

Human rights

William Nee, Research and Advocacy Coordinator at China Human Rights Defenders:

To some extent, the 20th Party Congress will not see any dramatic break from what is happening thus far--and that's exactly the problem. China is experiencing a human rights crisis: human rights defenders are systematically surveilled, persecuted, and tortured in prison. There are crimes against humanity underway in the Uyghur region, with millions of people being subjected to arbitrary detention, forced labor, or intrusive surveillance. The cultural rights of Tibetans are not respected. And now, Xi Jinping's ‘Zero-COVID’ policy is wreaking havoc on China's economy, and particularly the wellbeing of disadvantaged groups, like migrant workers and the elderly.

But there have been no signs whatsoever that the Communist Party is ready to course correct. Instead, after the 20th Party Congress, we will see a new batch of promotions, with these Communist Party cadres more indebted to Xi Jinping's patronage for their positions of power. In other words, Xi Jinping will have created an incentive structure in which these sycophantic ‘yes men’ will only repeat the ‘thoughts’ of the idiosyncratic leader to prove their loyalty. This makes it even more unlikely that Xi or the Communist Party will even see the necessity of a human rights course correction after the 20th Party Congress, let alone be bold enough to enact changes.

Uyghurs

Sean Roberts, associate professor of international affairs and anthropology at George Washington University and author of The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Campaign against Xinjiang Muslims:

It's clear that the present policy in the Uyghur region that has been so devastating for Uyghurs is something that Xi Jinping was very much involved in formulating. And in that context, it's hard to see that his continued rule is likely to be positive for Uyghurs. I have long suggested that in order to resolve this problem it’s going require a major reckoning and a mea culpa to the Uyghur people about what has happened. And I cannot see any way that that would happen. With Xi Jinping still as leader because he can't really blame this policy on anyone else. It's been well documented that he has been part of pushing the policies and he has continually defended them in his speeches and in his addresses to the international community. So I don't see his continued rule being a positive thing for the Uyghurs in China.

Tibet

Nyiwoe, Researcher at the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy:

During Xi’s second term since 2016, the policies of Sinicization and forced cultural assimilation have been at their most aggressive comparatively. In recent years, Tibetan writers and people influential in academics and culture, and younger generations in Tibet, have been arrested and imprisoned under the allegation of being ‘national security’ threats.

China-India relations

Kalpit A. Mankikar, China researcher with the Strategic Studies program at Observer Research Foundation, an independent global think tank based in Delhi, India:

There is kind of a dissonance that we see. So on one hand, I know talking about peace publicly and globally. On the other hand, you have Xi Jinping internally talking about a rich nation, strong army. You also have a certain kind of a mobilization of people in China, because there is a certain level of militarism that Xi Jinping is trying to instill in society. Now, given these ramifications, I think one has to be very vigilant because look at it: It is the weaponization of history, the weaponization of the historical narrative that Russia is using to justify its war in Ukraine. And when China says that it is not expansionist, it is implicit in this argument that it is only trying to take back what belongs to it.

Kanwan Sibal, retired career diplomat, former Indian Foreign Secretary:

If you look at the tenor of his speech in terms of where he wants to take China in his ambitions, there is no stepping back from the policies that he has pursued so far and which has led to many issues both within and outside China. So if he’s going to be very tough with regard to his views and thinking, which we already know, and within the power structure, there is no opposition now to what he intends to do and what his policies are, then this will automatically, automatically get reflected in his dealings with the outside world, and which would include India.

One might have actually reasoned that part of the reason why Xi Jinping was following hostile policies towards India, or unfriendly policies towards India, was because he had to show his muscle in order to consolidate power within the system, and that there might have been voices within the system which advocated a more open approach, a relatively more open approach, and with India in terms of ensuring that the relationship doesn't go downhill completely. But now that he has acquired full power, he's going to challenge the United States. And if he's going to challenge the United States, automatically he will challenge India.

Economic reform

Dexter Roberts, senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Asia Security Initiative and author of The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World:

The content of X’s speech is indicative of this attitude that the economy comes second. There's this new attitude that other things are more important. I think Xi Jinping not only does not care as much about economic growth, I also think, frankly, that he really doesn't understand the economy. He doesn't really understand basic economic principles--unlike who clearly does, but is certainly on his way to retirement.

I call Xi’s approach to the economy, ‘Xi Jinping's politics in command economy,’ and what we've seen over the particularly over the last couple of years is almost a disregard for a healthy economy. Instead. Xi Jinping very much puts his ideology above that. And we see areas that arguably really needed attention and definitely needed attention, like dealing with leverage in the property sector and in the economy that perhaps wasn't managed that well because it dramatically slowed the real estate sector, which is responsible for about a third of GDP. And then we've seen in other areas, where it just seemed it wasn't something that anyone thought or could see as a priority, for example, he cracked down on private education and basically wiped out this flourishing industry that was providing tens of thousands of jobs for smart, young Chinese people to teach English or teach math or teach Chinese or whatever. And he basically wiped it out with a little concern for the economic consequences.

One of the primary challenges is soaring youth unemployment -- around 20 percent, something which China hasn't seen in a very, very long time. Well, wiping out that sort of private tutoring and education sector was a direct blow to youth employment. Cracking down in a very heavy-handed fashion on the larger tech sector and some of China's wealthiest tech entrepreneurs-- people like Jack Ma and others also--without question contributed to growing youth unemployment.

So I think Xi Jinping, if you look at his record over the last, decade, the priority has been, as it is in sort of all aspects of life, to have tighter Communist Party control over the economy and over the private sector. This is not new. In 2016, he commanded entrepreneurs to love the Communist Party. And from then on he’s said that repeatedly, and he's pushed to put Communist Party cells into private companies and then more recently, basically threatened some of the richest private entrepreneurs in China that they needed to line up and put large amounts of their money into some of his signature policies, like common prosperity, for example.

Additional reporting by RFA Tibetan and Uyghur.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Paul Eckert for RFA.

Atomic energy cooperation between Myanmar and Russia raises concern

By RFA Burmese — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 21:42:44 +0000

An agreement signed by Myanmar’s military regime and Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation to jointly assess building a small reactor in the Southeast Asian country underscores the junta’s long-term pursuit of nuclear weapons, analysts said.

Myo Thein Kyaw, the regime’s minister of science and technology; Thuang Han, minister of electric power; and Alexey Likhachev, chief executive officer at Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, signed the “roadmap for cooperation” while they attended the Eastern Economic Forum on Sept. 5-8 in Vladivostok. Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing oversaw the signing of the agreement.

The deal would further Russian-Myanmar cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, and assess the feasibility of a small-scale nuclear reactor project in Myanmar, Rosatom said in a statement issued Sept. 6.

The same day, the junta announced that it would use nuclear energy for electricity generation, scientific research, medicine production and industry.

“The roadmap fixes the defined steps for further Russian-Myanmar cooperation in the nuclear sphere,” the statement said. “In particular the document provides for the expanding of bilateral legal framework, possibility of implementing a small modular reactors project in Myanmar, as well as personnel training and work related to the improvement of public acceptance of nuclear energy in Myanmar.”

Small modular reactors are smaller than conventional nuclear reactors and can be built in a factory and shipped to the site where they will operate and produce electric power.

Nevertheless, Myanmar’s political opposition and military analysts expressed concern over the agreement, fearing it could be the beginning of efforts to use nuclear technology for nefarious purposes, given the country’s ongoing internal armed conflict and widespread popular opposition to the regime following the February 2021 coup.

Captain Kaung Thu Win, an army officer who joined the anti-junta Civil Defense Movement (CDM), told RFA Burmese that the agreement is part of the junta’s efforts to eventually develop nuclear weapons.

“This deal demonstrates their goal to develop nuclear weapons,” he said. “They will try to develop nuclear weapons after they initially use the technology to generate electricity. They have been trying to recruit the nuclear technicians required for this goal. They have teams of technicians who completed the training in Russia.”

“This is part of the strategy to govern the people by fear,” he said. ‘They think that if they possess nuclear weapons, it will increase people’s fear.”

Successive military regimes that ruled Myanmar in the past harbored the same ambition of obtaining nuclear weapons, and the current junta is no different, Kaung Thu Win said.

Myanmar and Russia signed a previous preliminary agreement in June 2015 to work together in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Min Aung Hlaing has visited Russia three times in the 19 months since the military seized power from the democratically elected government in the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, and met with Rosatom officials during his second visit in July.

'A very risky and costly decision'

Hla Kyaw Zawl, a China-based political analyst, said Myanmar's military regime should use non-nuclear resources that are cheaper and more easily available if their intention is only to generate electricity.

A decision to build costly and risky nuclear reactors in Myanmar, while the country’s economy is in shambles, is a self-serving act that will not serve the interest of the people, she said.

“We see the trend of countries that don’t have good relations with Western countries considering the need for nuclear weapons to survive,” Hla Kyaw Zawl told RFA. “If the military regime genuinely cares about the people’s well-being, they can use other sustainable energy sources.”

“Choosing nuclear energy is a very risky and costly decision,” she added. “Myanmar doesn’t have any infrastructure to support that technology. This is an overblown ambition that would serve nothing but their own interests. ”

Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, said Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states would need to monitor fellow bloc member Myanmar more cautiously and thoroughly if the military regime builds a nuclear reactor.

“If they move forward, there will be more concerns among the ASEAN countries,” he said. “Their concerns would be not limited to Myanmar possessing nuclear weapons. There also would be concerns about safeguarding a nuclear reactor.”

“If there was any nuclear fallout [following a blast], it would affect the entire region,” he said. “The world will be watching and criticizing Myanmar more thoroughly if the regime moves forward with this goal.”

Myanmar’s military has been working to obtain nuclear weapons for decades, political analysts said.

The regime under Senior Gen. Than Shwe in 1999 negotiated with Russia to build a nuclear reactor that year, but the plan was canceled in 2002.

When Myanmar re-established relations with North Korea, attaining nuclear technology once again became a goal, and Thura Shwe Mann, a top military general, visited Pyongyang in 2008 to observe the rogue country’s military and missile facilities. Maj. Sai Thein Win, a military officer who defected, leaked information about how the Myanmar military under Than Shwe was trying to develop nuclear weapons with technology from Pyongyang.

Political analyst Than Soe Naing said Min Aung Hlaing is following in the footsteps of other military dictators in pursuing nuclear technology, and then developing weapons.

“They always advance to developing nuclear weapons after they achieve a nuclear reactor, and not just in Myanmar” he said. “ Min Aung Hlaing is pretty determined that he can deter pressures from the U.S. and Western countries if they achieve their nuclear ambition and are able to prolong military rule. That’s why Russia is helping them achieve this goal.”

But Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thaenaga Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said the world need not be concerned about the prospect of Myanmar developing nuclear weapons as long as the military regime works under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“Building a nuclear reactor in Myanmar is acceptable because it would help meet the country’s electricity needs,” he said.

“As for the prospect of developing nuclear weapons from nuclear waste, it shouldn’t be a concern as long as the waste is returned to Russia under the supervision of the IAEA.”

Myanmar was a founding IAEA member, though it did not generate any nuclear power. In 2016, it signed a country program framework with the agency and joined the Convention on Nuclear Safety, which commits parties operating land-based civil nuclear power plants to maintain a high level of safety.

Since 1992, Myanmar has been a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the objective of which is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. The country also signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 2016, which bans nuclear weapons test explosions, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2018, a legally binding international agreement that comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons with the final goal of total elimination.

Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Biden Administration Offers ‘Concern,’ But Refuses to Condemn Israeli Raids

Michael Arria — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 19:45:15 +0000

On August 18 Israeli forces carried out an overnight raid on the offices of seven Palestinian civil society organizations in the occupied West Bank. Armed soldiers stole documents, damaged property, and welded the office doors shut.

Six of the seven targeted groups (Al-Haq, Addameer, Defense for Children International – Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, The Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees) had been designated as terrorist organizations by the Israeli government in October 2021. Israel has never provided any public evidence to back up these allegations and classified documents obtained by +972, Local Call, and The Intercept show that the accusations are dubious.

Shortly after Israel designated the groups as terrorists, they presented the Biden administration with what they claimed to be "unequivocal" intelligence against the Palestinian NGOs. "We receive detailed information from the Israeli government," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters at the time. "We appreciated the consultation. We're reviewing the information that they provided us."

That was ten months ago, but the Biden administration has still not made a public conclusion about the evidence. At an April 2022 State Department briefing Price reiterated the same sentiments from October and did not indicate that they were any closer to reaching a verdict. "We have received detailed information on that very question from our Israeli partners, and it's something that we're continuing to review," he said. "We received detailed information from our Israeli partners on the basis for their designation. We're taking a very close look at that ourselves."

At yesterday's briefing Price was hit with a barrage of questions from the AP's Matt Lee and Al Quds' Said Arikat about the raid. Price expressed "concern" about the raids and said the administration was awaiting information about situation from its Israeli partners, the reporters asked why it hadn't released a statement about the evidence from October and why people should expect them to assess any new evidence in a timely manner. Lee told Price that the administration seemed to be in a "perpetual state of limbo."

"We have not seen anything that has caused us to change our position," Price eventually admitted, which marks the first time that the administration has acknowledged that it doesn't share Israel's position on the issue. However, Price refused to disagree with the Israeli government directly, much less accuse them of lying.

"So you don't believe the Israelis' information?," asked Lee at one point.

"Intelligence information is always information that is the subject of analysis and different parties can read information differently," responded Price. "They can perceive of threats differently. Our own analysis heretofore of the information that was provided last year has not caused us to change our approach to these organizations."

When Price was asked why the administration is simply voicing concern, instead of condemning the raids, he curiously referenced October evidence. "I think the fact is that our Israeli partners..took an action..to designate these organizations as so-called 'terrorist organizations', said Price. "What we've seen publicly, what they've conveyed privately in recent hours, is that there's an appropriate basis for the actions that they have taken. It will be a matter of urgency for us to review the basis for that information."

U.S. complicity

On Twitter some pointed out that the Biden administration helped facilitate the raids via their inaction in regards to the original intelligence. "To be clear, while this is the furthest the U.S. government has come, it still falls very short of where it needs to be," wrote the Palestinian-American political analyst Yousef Munayyer. "Their equivocation for months emboldened Israel to raid these offices today. When will the US finally condemn these actions, how much further does Israel have to go?"

"The Biden Admin has had Israel's 'evidence' for almost a year," wrote Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman. "It clearly knows this 'evidence' is BS—otherwise there is zero doubt they would have validated Israel's designations/designated the groups themself. But knowing the evidence was BS, they appear to have taken the politically & morally cowardly approach of staying silent—an approach that amounts to foreign policy gross negligence/complicity."

"Make no mistake: This is a Chekov's gun situation," she continued. "Israel put the gun on the table last October. The Biden Admin saw that gun and decided to do nothing to pressure Israel to remove it. Now, the Biden Admin cannot claim surprise when Israel aims/fires that gun at Palestinian human rights defenders."

A few Democratic House members also called Biden to act. "I am upset by the latest attacks by the Israeli army on Palestinian human rights groups," tweeted Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN). "Silencing human rights defenders is an attempt to avoid accountability. I reiterate calls from myself and my colleagues that the Biden administration immediately condemn this repression."

"Once again the IDF has launched a chilling attack on Defense for Children International-Palestine, a human rights organization supporting Palestinian children," wrote Rep. Betty McCollum. "The Biden administration must condemn these efforts to silence groups advocating for Palestinian human rights and civil society."

Last year McCollum introduced a resolution calling on the administration to condemn Israel's "authoritarian and antidemocratic" repression of the human rights groups.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Michael Arria.

Sino-Pakistan naval exercise raises concern in India

By RFA Staff — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 10:20:00 +0000

China and Pakistan kicked off a four-day joint maritime exercise on Sunday in an effort to bolster their naval cooperation, which some analysts see as a cause of concern for India.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) sent a submarine, three warships and four aircraft to the Sea Guardians-2 drills off Shanghai, the PLA Daily said.

PLAN spokesperson Liu Wensheng was quoted by Chinese media as saying that the exercise was “arranged according to the annual military cooperation plan of the two navies, has nothing to do with the regional situation and is not targeted at any third party.”

Participating ships from the PLA Eastern Theatre Command include the guided-missile frigates Xiangtan and Shuozhou, the comprehensive supply ship Qiandaohu and one submarine. There is also one early warning aircraft, two fighter jets and a helicopter. Pakistan sent the frigate Taimur, the second of four powerful Type 054A/P ships built by China for Pakistan’s navy.

The PLA said the joint maritime exercise aimed to “push forward development of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic partnership of cooperation.” It will feature training courses including joint strikes against maritime targets, joint tactical maneuvering, joint anti-submarine warfare and joint support for damaged vessels.

‘Gaining momentum’

The drills follow last month’s visit to China by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. During the trip, Gen. Javed Bajwa held talks with Zhang Youxia, one of China’s top generals and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

“Naval cooperation between China and Pakistan has been going on for quite some time but is gaining momentum now,” said Sana Hashmi, an Indian analyst and currently Visiting Fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation in Taipei.

“This exercise in particular is being noticed in India as China’s reach in the IOR [Indian Ocean Region] will be bolstered with Pakistan’s assistance. Definitely a cause of concern for India,” she said.

Indian media reported that Sino-Pakistan military cooperation in recent years focused more on navies as “China gradually stepped up its naval presence in India's backyard, the Indian Ocean.”

The current event is the second Sea Guardians exercise, the first was held in January 2020 in the North Arabian Sea.

The Press Trust of India (PTI) said the Arabian Sea is strategically important as many major Indian ports are located there and it provides entry to the Indian Ocean where China recently built a logistics base at Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

Beijing has also acquired the operational control of Pakistan's Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea, which connects with China's Xinjiang province by land as part of the U.S.$60-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Further to that, it obtained a 99-year lease of Sri Lanka’s second largest port, Hambantota and is developing it as part of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

“CPEC exists primarily to extend and strengthen China’s reach to the IOR and that’s one of the reasons besides the sovereignty issues that India opposes CPEC,” said Hashmi, adding that the Sino-Pakistan growing ties “will further bolster the Quad and encourage them to strengthen maritime cooperation.”

The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Beijing has been slamming it, saying that the group represents an attempt to form an “Asian NATO.” Quad countries have repeatedly rejected the criticism.

The Pakistan Navy ordered four powerful Type 054A/P frigates from China in 2017, two of which were delivered this year. It also signed a multi-billion deal to acquire eight submarines from China by 2028.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

Experts raise concern about implementation of US law on Uyghur forced labor

By Jilil Kashgary for RFA Uyghur — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 21:50:38 +0000

A U.S. law that bans the importation of products from Xinjiang in China in response to allegations that Uyghurs in the region are being used as forced labor took effect this week, but the tough new prohibitions could prove difficult to enforce, experts said Wednesday.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) created what is referred to as a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes goods made in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act.

The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor.

In previous U.S. investigations of imports from China, cotton used in major clothing brands, tomatoes and polysilicon for solar panels have been linked to forced labor in the XUAR.

The U.S. and several Western parliaments have said that China’s action in Xinjiang constitute a genocide and crimes against humanity. China denies that it has persecuted Uyghurs or other ethnic minority groups in the region.

The new forced labor law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 23, 2021.

But Douglas Barry, vice president of communications and publications for the U.S.-China Business Council, said the law is unclear about how companies can definitively prove that no forced labor was involved in the goods they import from China.

Several Chinese companies are already on the U.S. government’s Entity List, which forbids American firms from doing business with them unless they obtain special licenses, Barry said. Beyond that, the UFLPA places the onus on the U.S. firms to provide evidence that no forced labor was involved in the production of imported goods.

“That’s a challenge because of the lack of independent third party auditors on the ground in China,” he said.

“At the end of the day our member companies are fanatical about working in their supply chains to make sure there is no forced labor involved,” he said. “We hope that when enforcement issues arise in the coming days, the government agencies will work with the business community to resolve the issue as quickly as possible adjusting enforcement of tactics as the facts on the ground require.”

‘Challenging but doable’

Jessica Rifkin, an attorney who leads the customs, trade and litigation team at Benjamin L. England & Associates, said that exporters could get around the law by shipping their products to another country before they arrive in the U.S.

“[Y]ou have a good that’s subject to certain legal requirements based on its manufacture in one country, but then is shipped to another country, and then shipped through there to the U.S. in order to potentially evade those requirements,” she said.

These types of transactions could still happen under the new law, although Rifkin said that U.S. customs officials have ways to identify those goods.

U.S. companies could also divide their supply chains to get around the new requirement, presenting a major challenge to enforcement, said Peter Irwin, senior program officer for advocacy and communications at the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project.

“You have one supply chain that is for the U.S. market to comply with the law, and then maybe they’ll bifurcate their supply chain and have another supply chain that doesn’t necessarily need to follow this law,” he told RFA.

Since 2017, Chinese authorities have allegedly ramped up their repression of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor.

Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the law’s implementation will be difficult but not impossible.

“Some of the most complex challenges may be for companies that have, for example, taken a semi-finished product and sent it to the Uyghur region for finishing, and then sent it someplace else, and then sent it on into the United States,” she said.

“Tracking the actual trajectory of the full supply chain is going to be challenging, but it is doable,” Richardson added. “Over time, hopefully what will happen is that companies will be do a better job of keeping records and sharing information about how things were produced and how they reached the U.S.”

Holding China to account

Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said called U.S. Customs and Border Protection should release data about any violations to the new law it finds.

“Data should be released on the Customs and Border Protection’s website on a regular basis about the goods it holds, re-exports, excludes, and seizes, including information on the company importing the banned goods, their nature, value, and why the action was taken,” Abbas said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

At a regular news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called the allegations of forced labor in the XUAR “a huge lie made up by anti-China forces to denigrate China.”

“It is the complete opposite of the reality Xinjiang, where cotton and other industries rely on large-scale mechanized production and the rights of workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are duly protected,” he said.

“The U.S.’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is built on a lie and designed to impose sanctions on relevant entities and individuals in Xinjiang,” said Wang. “This move is the furtherance of that lie and an escalation of U.S. suppression on China under the pretext of human rights. Moreover, the act is solid evidence of U.S.’s arbitrariness in undermining international economic and trade rules and global industrial and supply chains.”

The U.S. government has taken measures to promote accountability in the XUAR, including visa restrictions, financial sanctions, export controls and import restrictions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday.

In July 2021, multiple U.S. agencies released an updated business advisory on Xinjiang warning of the legal risks associated with state-sponsored forced labor in supply chains connected to Xinjiang and providing guidance to help U.S. companies avoid trade that facilitates or benefits from human rights abuses.

“We are rallying our allies and partners to make global supply chains free from the use of forced labor, to speak out against atrocities in Xinjiang, and to join us in calling on the government of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to immediately end atrocities and human rights abuses, including forced labor,” Blinken said.

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jilil Kashgary for RFA Uyghur.

Experts raise concern about implementation of US law on Uyghur forced labor

By Jilil Kashgary for RFA Uyghur — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 21:50:38 +0000

The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor.

In previous U.S. investigations of imports from China, cotton used in major clothing brands, tomatoes and polysilicon for solar panels have been linked to forced labor in the XUAR.

The new forced labor law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 23, 2021.

“That’s a challenge because of the lack of independent third party auditors on the ground in China,” he said.

‘Challenging but doable’

These types of transactions could still happen under the new law, although Rifkin said that U.S. customs officials have ways to identify those goods.

Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the law’s implementation will be difficult but not impossible.

Holding China to account

Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said called U.S. Customs and Border Protection should release data about any violations to the new law it finds.

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jilil Kashgary for RFA Uyghur.

Bridge in disputed territory between China and India sparks concern

By Trinley Choedon — Fri, 13 May 2022 21:55:02 +0000

A bridge being built by China across Pangong Lake in a disputed section of northwest India could further inflame tensions between the two countries, experts on the border dispute said.

The bridge, which spans about 500 meters (1,640 feet), is situated south of a position occupied by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the north bank of the lake in Ladakh, an area that India contends China has illegally occupied since 1962. The area has been the site of clashes between the countries, as has the so-called Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.

The bridge will cut the travel distance between the PLA position and a military base in Rutog (in Chinese, Ritu) county, Ngari prefecture, in far-western Tibet Autonomous Region by about 150 kilometers (93 miles), making it easier for Chinese troops to counter Indian forces if future flare-ups arise.

A black dot marks the site of the new bridge over Pangong Lake on the border with India and China. Credit: RFA graphic/Datawrapper

In January, geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon first used satellite imagery to show that China was building a bridge across Pangong Lake the eastern Ladakh territory it controls. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin that month said the construction would safeguard China’s security.

“China building bridge over Pangong Lake is a key area for the Indian border,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “Despite land agreements between the two, China has been carrying out military activities in the border area. The bridge will make it easier for Chinese troops to access the region.”

Sana Hashmi, a visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation in Taipei whose research focuses on China’s foreign policy and territorial disputes, said that the border dispute will be at the forefront of China-India relations going forward.

“This only shows that China has no real intention of resolving the dispute and that the tensions are only going to grow,” she told RFA in a written statement.

India is responding to the bridge construction by boosting its defense capabilities and seeking cooperation with like-minded countries, Sana Hashmi said.

This satellite image with a detail inset shows China's bridge over Pangong Lake on the border with India and China, April 24, 2022. Credit: EO Browser, Sinergise Ltd.

Kunchok Tenzin, a councilor from the Pangong Lake area, said the bridge’s construction has raised concern among locals, who fear they could be hurt if a clash between India and China breaks out.

“The Indian government should make the development of border areas a priority and ensure the safety of the local residents,” he said.

Monk Kunchok Rigchok from Pangong Monastery said that people know the bridge may pose a threat in the future.

“Though there is no fear as we have lived here our whole lives, but the Indian government must remain on alert because China has illegally occupied land in the region,” he said. “They may target our place soon.”

Tenzin Lhundup, a Pangong Lake resident who lives by the border, said he was born in the area and intends to live there until he dies.

“We are not scared of the Chinese, as they have been visiting this area even during the pandemic lockdown,” he said.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Trinley Choedon.

CPJ joins call expressing concern over EU draft legislation that threatens encryption

Erik Crouch — Fri, 13 May 2022 14:25:38 +0000

On May 12, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined dozens of free expression groups, technology organizations, and individuals in a statement expressing concern over legislation proposed by the European Commission that could threaten digital encryption.

The legislation, known as the Regulation on Child Sexual Abuse, which the commission proposed on May 11, would compel online platforms to scan user content and metadata for harmful images and so-called “grooming” conversations, according to the statement. Platforms would be required to report such information to government authorities and delete the material.

Such measures would mean that internet platforms would be required to access encrypted content, which is currently unavailable to them. While the signatories expressed a belief that child abuse is a serious crime that should be addressed by EU member states, they wrote that the commission’s approach “would have devastating impacts on the security of communications and on user privacy.” The groups instead recommended that legislation facilitate users’ ability to report abuse material to authorities.

Journalists rely on encryption to evade surveillance and protect their sources, CPJ has found.

The full statement can be found here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Moldovan PM Says No Imminent Risk Of Ukraine War Spilling Over, But Voices Concern

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Fri, 06 May 2022 14:58:28 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The GOP’s Newfound Concern for “The Children” Doesn’t Save Kids from Their #1 Killer: Guns

Thom Hartmann — Sat, 23 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Nina Shapiro reports at Forbes this week in an article titled "The Leading Cause Of Death In Children And Youths Is Now Guns":

"Access to firearms by children, by unlicensed owners, and absence of safety measures when it comes to both intentional and unintentional gun-related injuries and deaths, are among the reasons that the incidence of this horrific, truly avoidable tragedy is on the rise."

The latest con from the GOP is that they're all about "the children."

They're worried that trans people will show up in the "wrong" bathroom and scare or threaten "the children."
They're hysterical that teaching American history will cause white children to "feel bad."
They're locking up women and threatening them with life in prison because they had a miscarriage that Republicans suspect might have been a self-induced abortion.
They're happily jumping on the 2022 GOP version of the Tsar's antisemitic blood libel, claiming their political opponents are "groomers" targeting children.
They're enthusiastically embracing the Qanon slogan: "Save the children!"

Until you mention children killed by guns.

Then, Republicans retreat into a bizarre cone of silence or simply turn and run away from the conversation altogether. Or, worse, they continue grooming their own young people to become school shooters, as you can see below.

Twenty years ago, car accidents were the leading killer of children and youth; today it's guns.

At the turn of the 21st century, there were about 14 car-crash deaths among young people (aged 1-24) per 100,000 young Americans, and only a bit over 7 gun deaths per 100,000. This year, almost 11 out of 100,000 children died from guns while only 8 per 100K died from car crashes.

And most all of those child gun deaths, which don't happen in any other developed country in the world, are entirely preventable, if only Republicans would stop actively blocking progress.

As I noted in The Hidden History of Guns and the 2nd Amendment:

A company named Safe Gun Technology, Inc. developed a fingerprint reader that's built right into the grip on handguns and rifles, preventing the weapon from being fired by anybody except those people "authorized" to shoot it by having their fingerprints in its system. Their fingerprint reader, simply a flat spot on the grip where a fingertip would normally lay, can even be retrofitted onto existing weapons.
Another company, Intelligun, offers a similar fingerprint-reading product and is working with the US Army's Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center to come up with a stock that, instead of recognizing fingerprints (which can be obscured by dirt, etc.), measures exactly how and where the authorized user grips his or her gun, another biometric measure that's highly personalized.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) recognition of a gun's owner, thus unlocking the weapon, has become a mature industry; TriggerSmart Technologies sells a gun that unlocks when handled by a user who's wearing a ring that the gun recognizes. The Germany company Armatix sells a gun that unlocks by RFID with a watch worn by the owner.
But none of these technologies are making any significant inroads in the American gun market. In fact, gun dealers who've tried to sell these products have been threatened, including explicit death threats.
Fortune magazine reported on a man named "Doug" who started and ran a website, now closed, at smartgunz.com, that promoted safer guns and offered the Armatix (RFID with a watch) gun for sale here in America. He wouldn't give his last name to Fortune, though, because he feared for his life.
As Fortune wrote: "And that's why Doug has to be so hush-hush. If his last name were made public, people would try to put him out of business and, perhaps, threaten to kill him. That's what happened to the last two gun dealers who tried to sell this gun."
It's as if the car industry had succeeded in their 1970s campaign against having to put seat belts and airbags into cars, and thus instead of only around 35,000 people a year dying in car crashes, the number was two or three times that. And car enthusiasts or agents of the auto industry were threatening the lives of people offering to sell aftermarket seat belts or running websites advocating for them.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced legislation requiring one of these sorts of safety devices to be built into any new guns sold in America; Republican leadership in the Senate refused to even consider it in committee, much less bring it to the floor for a vote.

The GOP gifted gun manufacturers with near-absolute immunity against product liability lawsuits, so manufacturers have zero incentive to sell safer weapons.

Their immunity from lawsuits is so extreme that the only way the parents of the kids murdered at Sandy Hook could hold Remington responsible was to instead go after their marketing: they had to point out how the company was "selling masculinity" to get guns into the hands of insecure boys.

The danger of an AR15 weapon-of-war in an elementary school couldn't even be discussed.

Back in the early years of the 20th century when cars had become so common they were regularly killing people in auto accidents, states hit on a simple formula to encourage safe driving and maintain clear lines of responsibility when things went wrong.

Every car was required to be registered every year with the state; if it was found out in public without registration it could be confiscated.
Every driver was required to prove knowledge of how to safely drive, with both a written and a real-life driving test.
And every driver was required to carry liability insurance, so if there was an accident the victims were covered, regardless of who was at fault.

For about 100 years drivers have lived with these three simple requirements, and they've worked. The liability insurance is particularly effective: as a "free market solution," insurance companies now compile information on drivers' safety records, including their history of violence, and set their rates accordingly.

Think about it: if Adam Lanza had murdered those kids at Sandy Hook by mowing them down in the street with his mom's SUV, their families would have gotten $1 million each from Geico (for example). But because he killed them with a gun, they got nothing; even survivors of gun shootings and "accidents" get nothing for medical bills.

The only city in America that's taken a cue from that century of insurance experience is San Jose, California which in 2021 put a liability insurance requirement into place for all gun owners in the city.

If you've committed gun-related crimes or your guns have killed people in the past, the "free market" for insurance will make it very expensive to own a gun; if you're a gun owner who keeps your weapons in a gun safe and uses trigger guards, your rates will be nominal.

One of the main reasons fewer children are dying in car accidents now than a decade or two ago is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been compiling statistics for decades and has repeatedly identified safety flaws in particular vehicles or the way they're used.

Throughout that time gun safety advocates have wanted a federal agency to compile gun injury and death statistics, but a bought-off member of Congress, Arkansas Republican Jay Dickey, attached the notorious "Dickey Amendment" to a must-pass omnibus spending bill in 1996.

In response to a growing number of research papers in the 1980s and early 1990s calling gun deaths a national health crisis and demanding federally funded science on the issue, his NRA-sponsored amendment banned any federal dollars from being used to research gun injuries or deaths in the US.

As The New England Journal of Medicine noted this week:

"Although substantial federal funding has been devoted to research on motor vehicle crashes, the firearm industry and gun-rights organizations, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), have been effective at keeping federal dollars from financing firearm-related research."

Republicans in Congress continue to attach the Dickey Amendment to every major omnibus spending bill and refuse to vote for any that doesn't contain it. If anybody is "grooming" children toward dangerous behavior, it's Republicans proudly grooming their own kids to be future school shooters:

There's also the problem of the simple proliferation of guns, and the fact that more and more of them are semi-automatic weapons of war rather than simple revolvers or sport-shooting guns and rifles.

In 2010, a bit fewer than 10 million guns were sold in the US. Just the one year of 2020 saw that number more than double to nearly 22 million guns sold in just a 12-month period; 2021 added another 19 million guns to America's homes.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the more guns there are—particularly lacking any incentives to secure them safely—the more gun deaths (accidental, homicide, suicide) there will be.

There are now more guns in America than there are people, a bizarre situation that no other developed country in the world experiences. Literally none.

The average of all countries in the world is 9.86 guns per 100 civilians. The United States is highest in the world at 120.5 guns per 100 people. Yemen, which is in the middle of a war with Saudi Arabia and dealing with an internal insurgency, comes in second at 52.8. No other nation is even close; even Afghanistan and Iraq average around 20 deadly weapons in the hands of every hundred people.

While President Biden has signed an executive order banning the scourge of untraceable "ghost guns" and put gun safety in his last State of the Union speech, there is so much more to do.

Tuesday of this week a group of young activists including mass shooting survivor and March For Our Lives leader David Hogg covered the front of Senator Chuck Schumer's office with body bags because of his unwillingness to bring gun control legislation to the floor of the Senate during this election year.

Meanwhile, the NRA, still flush with an infusion of cash from Russia, has succeeded in lobbying 25 states to allow anybody to carry a concealed gun with no background checks, no training, and no permit, regardless of their criminal or violent history.

America is neither poor nor stupid. We figured out how cars were killing people and put an end to most avoidable automobile deaths using a combination of commonsense laws (like mandatory licensure and insurance) and safety measures (seatbelts, carseats, padded dashes, anti-lock brakes, etc.).

The problem is that the GOP, their newfound concern for "the children" notwithstanding, does everything they can to block any reasonable solutions to the problem of gun violence and deaths in America, particularly among our kids.

We have both the technology and the resources to deal with childhood injuries and deaths from the only product sold in America that is specifically designed to kill human beings.

We just have to shame Republicans enough to stop taking money from and embracing this death-dealing industry so America can put these reasonable steps—that have worked so well in other developed nations—into place here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Thom Hartmann.

NZ ‘grave concern’ over proposed China-Solomon Islands pact

By RFA Staff — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 23:58:10 +0000

New Zealand’s leader voiced grave concern Monday over a draft security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands that, if approved, could see Beijing establish a military base in the South Pacific.

Australia’s prime minister also reiterated his nation’s concern about the planned agreement that was leaked online last week.

The security pact would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation, “marking the start of a much sharper military competition than anything we’ve seen in the region for decades,” said David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Adern said on Monday that her country sees the pact as “gravely concerning."

"We see such acts as a potential militarization of the region and also see very little reason in terms of the Pacific security for such a need and such a presence," Adern told Radio NZ when asked about a possible stationing of Chinese military ships in the Solomon Islands.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying that the agreement was a "reminder of constant pressures and threats that present in our region to our own national security."

Morrison was due to speak to leaders of Papua New Guinea and Fiji on Monday to discuss the matter which he called “an issue of concern for the region, but it has not come as a surprise.”

Capie said that if approved by the Solomon Islands’ cabinet, the agreement “would allow the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to deploy police and military personnel to Solomon Islands with the consent of the host government, and potentially provide for refueling and support of Chinese ships.

New Zealand military and police depart on a C-130 Hercules from Ohakea, New Zealand, to help contain rioting on the Solomon Islands, Dec. 2, 2021. Credit: NZDF via AP

‘Clear evidence of Beijing intention’

According to Capie, there have been a lot of reports in recent years about China looking to improve its access to South Pacific states and “possibly seeking some sort of military or dual-use facility.”

“Some of the stories seemed pretty fanciful, but this draft agreement is clear evidence of Beijing’s ambitions,” he said.

China has denied any ulterior motives beyond promoting “regional peace and stability.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “As two sovereign and independent states, China and Solomon Islands conduct normal law enforcement and security cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.”

“We hope relevant sides will look at this in an objective and rational light and refrain from reading too much into it,” Wang said.

China has growing interests in the region including trade, investments, a sizeable diaspora and a large deep water fishing fleet.

But Capie noted that China “also wants to be able to operate its rapidly growing navy out in the wider Pacific, complicating U.S. plans in the event of a future conflict.”

“A base in the Pacific would let People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels operate far away from their home ports for longer and in the future might also be used for intelligence gathering and surveillance,” he said.

The draft agreement would still need to go through the Solomon Islands cabinet and “there will be plenty of twists and turns before this is a done deal, if it ever is,” the New Zealand analyst said.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

UN committee raises concern over Cambodia’s crowded, unsanitary prisons

Radio Free Asia — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 23:36:56 +0000

Cambodia’s vastly overcrowded prisons may violate international laws against cruel and inhuman punishment, as inmates lack sufficient sleeping spaces and access to clean water and fresh air, according to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

The committee met on March 11 in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss a report on how Cambodia implements the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to hear responses from Cambodian officials.

The body of independent experts monitors implementation of the multilateral treaty. Governments must submit regular reports on how civil and political rights of individuals — including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights, and rights to due process and a fair trial — are being implemented.

Cambodia’s prison population has doubled since 2015, with 38,977 inmates in facilities that can hold up to 8,804, meaning that the prisons are operating at 343% capacity, said the report issued in September 2021. The report covers the period from June 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021.

“The situation in prisons is perilous to the point that the conditions may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment given the levels of mental and physical pain experienced by prisoners, the lack of sleeping space, the inadequacy of the water and sanitation, and the limited access to fresh air and health care,” the report said.

The document also referred to allegations of several suspicious deaths of Cambodians while they were in custody, many of which were neither reported nor investigated.

The Cambodian delegation at Friday’s meeting included representatives of the Cambodia Human Rights Committee, Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training, Ministry of Information, Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Interior, and the Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Chin Malin, secretary of state of Cambodia’s Justice Ministry, said his country has worked hard to resolve the issue of overcrowded prisons, including by reducing a backlog of court cases, suspending sentences and releasing some Cambodians held in pretrial detention.

Authorities use pretrial detention — which for serious felonies can last for 24 months — because of a lack of legal personnel and the case backlog, Cambodian officials said.

Authorities have released detainees who committed minor offenses, expedited vaccinations and limited visitations to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus within prisons, the officials said.

But a committee expert cited data suggesting that the average prison occupancy in 2020 was beyond 300% of capacity, with overuse of incarceration as one of the underlying causes.

The expert, whose name was not given in a U.N. summary of the meeting, requested more information on what Cambodia was doing to reduce prison overcrowding.

The expert also noted that 30-40% of all detainees were awaiting trials and that there had been frequent allegations that their due process rights were being disregarded. The person wanted to know if Cambodian officials had developed guidelines for judges to use in their decisions on pretrial detention.

Water shortages

Another committee expert asked for more information on the number of deaths in prisons from epidemiological outbreaks, the availability and access to COVID-19 testing, and the rate at which detainees have been vaccinated.

Experts also raised questions about people who suffered from drug addiction being detained and forced to undergo medical treatment under Cambodian law and reports of homeless people detained against their will in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

Cambodian officials said the General Department of Prisons was investigating cases of torture and that the government was reviewing its laws to try to prevent the practice. Some officials who have been identified as torturing inmates have been charged and placed in pretrial detention, the delegation said.

Nuth Savana, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons, told RFA that the prison overcrowding has been reduced since last year. The department reported a decrease of 2,000 prisoners this year from the nearly 39,000 inmates that were behind bars in 2021.

Nuth Savana said his department was also working to address the problem of water shortages in detention facilities, saying that more wells are being dug at prisons.

“[Concerning] prisons that face the problem, we are working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to create filtered water systems, such as in Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey and Siem Reap provinces,” he said. “We’ve dug more wells.”

Prisons in Kampong Cham and Kampong Chhnang provinces have filtered water system installed, he said.

“We have prioritized the lack of water first,” Nuth Savana said. “As I said, the problem of water shortages is an old report.”

Ny Sokha, a human rights defender and president of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, said overcrowding continues to be a problem because the government has not paid much attention to it.

The situation is still serious enough that it affects the detainees physically and psychologically, he said.

Ny Sokha, who was himself a prisoner of conscience, also said the congestion could be due to an increase in the number of drug users who have been incarcerated.

“If we cannot solve the problem of overcrowded prisons, it can affect prisoners’ health and their mental state, so that when they are released, they cannot be good human resources,” he said. “They become sick and suffer from debilitating diseases, so it’s not good for them or for our society.”

The U.N. Human Rights Committee is scheduled to hold another public meeting on Friday and plans to issue its concluding observations and recommendations on Cambodia by March 25.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.