guard – Radio Free

Appeals court hears Trump vs Newsom challenge to National Guard in LA; CA lawmakers consider bill banning toxic chemicals in firefighters’ equipment – June 17, 2025

KPFA — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 18:00:00 +0000

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

Appeals court hears Trump vs Newsom challenge to National Guard in Los Angeles
Union workers arrested while protesting SF budget cuts at Board of Supervisors meeting
CA Senate committee takes up bill to ban toxic PFAS chemicals in firefighters’ equipment
NYC democratic mayoral candidate arrested by at immigration court
Prominent Spanish-language journalist turned over to ICE after arrest covering No Kings protests in Atlanta area
60 killed, 280 injured while seeking food aid at aid distribution sites in Gaza

The post Appeals court hears Trump vs Newsom challenge to National Guard in LA; CA lawmakers consider bill banning toxic chemicals in firefighters’ equipment – June 17, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Editor calls for NZ to immediately expel Israeli envoy for unprovoked attack on Iran

Pacific Media Watch — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 02:51:17 +0000

EDITORIAL: By Martyn Bradbury, editor of The Daily Blog

The madness has begun.

We should have suspected something when the cloud strike shut down occurred.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to continue war so that he is never held to account.

This madness is the last straw.

NZ must immediately expel the Israeli Ambassador for this unprovoked attack on Iran.

As moral and ethical people, we must turn away from Israel’s new war crime, they have started a war, we must as righteous people condemn Israel and their enabler America.

This is the beginning of madness.

We cannot be party to it.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said the Israeli army radio was reporting that in addition to the air strikes, Israel’s external intelligence service Mossad had carried out some sabotage activities and attacks inside Iran.

“There are also several reports and leaks in the Israeli media talking not only about the assassination of the top chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard but rather a very large number of senior military commanders in addition to prominent academics and nuclear scientists,” she said.

“This is a very large-scale attack, not just on military installations, but also on the people who could potentially be making decisions about what Iran can do next, how Iran can respond to this attack that continues as we speak.”

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

Progressive Caucus Statement on Trump’s Deployment of National Guard to Los Angeles

Newswire Editor — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 20:27:45 +0000

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (TX-35) issued the following statement on Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests:

“Trump politicizing and weaponizing the National Guard makes us all less safe and less free. His threat to deploy the Marines into the streets of an American city is an illegal and authoritarian escalation.

“Trump’s threats have nothing to do with keeping people safe—it’s about political theater. He’s scapegoating immigrants to distract from the GOP’s real agenda: ripping health care away from millions to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich.

“We will not be intimidated. Progressives are standing up to this administration, including by conducting lawful oversight at ICE detention centers in Los Angeles and across the country. We stand with Angelenos, and we stand with immigrant families everywhere. The President must return command of the National Guard to Governor Newsom.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Our Revolution Condemns Trump’s Deployment of National Guard to Los Angeles

Newswire Editor — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 20:13:40 +0000

Our Revolution unequivocally condemns President Donald Trump’s dangerous and authoritarian deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles. This alarming move is the latest in a series of escalating actions—including attacks on the media, the courts, and peaceful protest—that signal a deepening slide toward oligarchy and authoritarian governance in our country.

“This is not law and order—it’s tyranny,” said Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese. “When power is concentrated in the hands of a corrupt few, and dissent is met with armed repression, democracy itself is under siege. We must call this what it is: a threat to the republic.”

Our Revolution stands with the people of Los Angeles and with communities nationwide who are rising up for justice and democracy. We urge every elected official, candidate, and organization that claims to defend democracy to speak out and act decisively against this authoritarian power grab.

In response to the Administration’s dangerous deployment of armed forces against civilians, Our Revolution is urging its 8 million+ members to demand Congress act now to stop this authoritarian power grab—circulating a petition calling on lawmakers to block the military escalation.

The line between military and civilian government is one of the most critical protections in a functioning democracy. Trump’s use of armed troops against U.S. communities is a blatant abuse of power. Congress must act.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"Unprecedented": Trump Deploys National Guard to L.A., Hegseth Threatens to Send in Marines

Democracy Now! — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 15:00:37 +0000

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

L.A. Under Siege: Trump Sends in National Guard as Protests Continue over Militarized ICE Raids

Democracy Now! — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:57:59 +0000

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

‘A Declaration of War’: Trump Sends National Guard to LA Over Anti-ICE Protests

Olivia Rosane — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:34:39 +0000

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 8, 2025. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

U.S. President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard members in response to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Los Angeles over the weekend, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened to call in the marines.

The protests kicked off on Friday in opposition to ICE raids of retail establishments around Los Angeles. During Friday’s protests David Huerta, president of SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West, was injured and then arrested while observing a raid. His arrest sparked further protests, which carried over into Saturday in response to apparent ICE activity in the nearby city of Paramount.

“The Trump administration’s baseless deployment of the National Guard is plainly retaliation against California, a stronghold for immigrant communities, and is akin to a declaration of war on all Californians,” Victor Leung, chief legal and advocacy officer at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement.

“They yell ‘invasion’ at the border—but this is the real one: Trump is seizing control of California’s National Guard and forcing 2,000 troops into our streets.”

Saturday’s most dramatic protest occurred outside a Home Depot in Paramount following rumors of an ICE raid there. However, Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons told the Los Angeles Times that the ICE agents may instead have been staging at a nearby Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office. There were also rumors of an ICE raid on a meatpacking plant that never occurred.

“We don’t know what was happening, or what their target was. To think that there would be no heightening of fear and no consequences from the community doesn’t sound like good preparation to me,” Lemons said. “Above all, there is no communication and things are done on a whim. And that creates chaos and fear.”

According to the LA Times, the Home Depot protests began peacefully until officers lobbed flash-bang grenades and pepper balls at the crowd, after which some individuals responded by throwing rocks and other objects at the ICE cars, and one person drove their vehicle toward the ICE agents.

“Many of the protesters did not appear to engage in these tactics,” the LA Times reported.

In another incident, Lindsay Toczylowski, the chief executive of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, wrote on social media that ICE agents threw a tear-gas canister at two of the center’s female attorneys after they asked the agents if they could see a warrant and observe their activities.

ICE just threw a teargas canister at the two female @immdef attorneys moments after this picture was taken while they were calmly asking to be allowed to see the warrant and to be allowed to observe its execution. https://t.co/aOtFIRqDyh
— Lindsay Toczylowski (@L_Toczylowski) June 7, 2025

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said that over a dozen people were arrested on Saturday for interfering with the work of immigration agents.

The first member of the Trump administration to mention sending in the National Guard was White House border czar Tom Homan, who told Fox News, “We’re gonna bring National Guard in tonight and we’re gonna continue doing our job. This is about enforcing the law.”

Trump then signed a memo Saturday night calling members of the California National Guard into federal service to protect ICE and other government officials.

“To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” the memo reads in part.

“The only threat to safety today is the masked goon squads that the administration has deployed to terrorize the communities of Los Angeles County.”

Instead of using the Insurrection Act, as some had speculated he might, Trump federalized the guard members under the president’s Title 10 authority, which allows the president to place the National Guard under federal control given certain conditions, but does not allow those troops to carry out domestic law enforcement activities, which invoking the Insurrection Act would enable.

“On its face, then, the memorandum federalizes 2,000 California National Guard troops for the sole purpose of protecting the relevant DHS personnel against attacks,” Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck explained in a blog post Saturday. “That’s a significant (and, in my view, unnecessary) escalation of events in a context in which no local or state authorities have requested such federal assistance. But by itself, this is not the mass deployment of troops into U.S. cities that had been rumored for some time.”

Indeed, several state leaders spoke out against the deployment.

“The federal government is moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on social media Saturday. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions. LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice. We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need.”

“The Guard has been admirably serving LA throughout recovery,” he continued, referring to the devastating wildfires that swept the city early this year. “This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) posted on social media that he “couldn’t agree more.”

“Using the National Guard this way is a completely inappropriate and misguided mission,” Padilla said. “The Trump administration is just sowing more chaos and division in our communities.”

Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) added, “They yell ‘invasion’ at the border—but this is the real one: Trump is seizing control of California’s National Guard and forcing 2,000 troops into our streets.”

While the National Guard’s mission is currently limited, Vladeck argued that there were three reasons to be “deeply concerned” about the development. First, troops could still respond to real or perceived threats with violence, escalating the situation; second, escalation may be the desired outcome from the Trump administration, and used as a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act after all; and third, this could depress the morale of both National Guard members and the civilians they engage with while degrading the relationships between federal, local, and state authorities.

“There is something deeply pernicious about invoking any of these authorities except in circumstances in which their necessity is a matter of consensus beyond the president’s political supporters,” Vladeck wrote. “The law may well allow President Trump to do what he did Saturday night. But just because something is legal does not mean that it is wise—for the present or future of our Republic.”

Leung of the ACLU criticized both the ICE raids and the decision to deploy the Guard.

“Workers in our garment districts or day laborers seeking work outside of Home Depot do not undermine public safety,” Leung said. “They are our fathers and mothers and neighbors going about their day and making ends meet. Rather, the only threat to safety today is the masked goon squads that the administration has deployed to terrorize the communities of Los Angeles County.”

He continued: “There is no rational reason to deploy the National Guard on Angelenos, who are rightfully outraged by the federal government’s attack on our communities and justly exercising their First Amendment right to protest the violent separation of our families. We intend to file suit and hold this administration accountable and to protect our communities from further attacks.”

National political leaders also spoke out Sunday morning.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on social media that it was “important to remember that Trump isn’t trying to heal or keep the peace. He is looking to inflame and divide. His movement doesn’t believe in democracy or protest—and if they get a chance to end the rule of law they will take it. None of this is on the level.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) posted that the entire incident was “Trump’s authoritarianism in real time.”

Trump’s authoritarianism in real time:

Conduct massive illegal raids.
Provoke a counter-response.
Declare a state of emergency.
Call in the troops.

Unacceptable.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 8, 2025

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened further escalation Saturday night when he tweeted that “if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized—they are on high alert.”

Newsom responded: “The Secretary of Defense is now threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens. This is deranged behavior.”

“This is an abuse of power and what dictators do. It’s unnecessary and not needed.”

Hegseth then doubled down on the threat Sunday morning, replying on social media that it was “deranged” to allow “your city to burn and law enforcement to be attacked.”

“The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE,” he posted.

Journalist Ryan Grim noted that it was an “ominous development” for the secretary of defense to be commenting on immigration policy or local law enforcement at all.

Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) said of Trump and Hegseth’s escalations: “This is an abuse of power and what dictators do. It’s unnecessary and not needed.”

Writing on his Truth Social platform early Sunday, Trump praised the National Guard for their work in Los Angeles. Yet local and state leaders pointed out that the Guard had not yet arrived in the city by the time the post was made.

For those keeping track, Donald Trump's National Guard had not been deployed on the ground when he posted this. pic.twitter.com/xm2CViZMKe
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 8, 2025

As of Sunday morning, the National Guard had arrived in downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, ABC 7 reported.

In the midst of the uproar over Trump’s actions, labor groups continued to decry the ICE raids and call for the release of Huerta.

National Nurses United wrote on Friday: “With these raids, the government is sowing intense fear for personal safety among our immigrant and migrant community. Nurses and other union workers oppose this, and are standing up in solidarity with fellow immigrant workers. We refuse to be silent, and people like David Huerta are bravely putting their own bodies on the line to bear witness to what ICE is doing. It’s appalling that ICE injured and detained him while he was exercising his First Amendment rights. We demand his immediate release.”

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said in a statement Saturday:

The nearly 15 million working people of the AFL-CIO and our affiliated unions demand the immediate release of California Federation of Labor Unions Vice President and SEIU California and SEIU-USWW President David Huerta. As the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda has unnecessarily targeted our hard-working immigrant brothers and sisters, David was exercising his constitutional rights and conducting legal observation of ICE activity in his community. He was doing what he has always done, and what we do in unions: putting solidarity into practice and defending our fellow workers. In response, ICE agents violently arrested him, physically injuring David in the process, and are continuing to detain him—a violation of David’s civil liberties and the freedoms this country holds dear. The labor movement stands with David, and we will continue to demand justice for our union brother until he is released.

The unrest in Los Angeles may continue as Barragán told CNN on Sunday she had been informed that ICE would be present in LA for a month. She argued that the National Guard deployment would only inflame the conflict.

“We haven’t asked for the help. We don’t need the help. This is [President Trump] escalating it, causing tensions to rise. It’s only going to make things worse in a situation where people are already angry over immigration enforcement.”

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Olivia Rosane.

“Absolutely Unprecedented”: Trump Deploys National Guard to L.A. & Hegseth Threatens to Send in Marines

Democracy Now! — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:36:30 +0000

As protests against ICE raids spread across the city, President Trump has deployed the California National Guard to Los Angeles, the first time in decades that a president has deployed the National Guard without a governor’s request. Trump’s border “czar” Tom Homan threatened to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, while Newsom says he plans to sue. “This is absolutely unprecedented. It’s extremely dangerous,” says legal expert Elizabeth Goitein. “It’s going to escalate tensions rather than deescalating them.”

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

L.A. Under Siege: Trump Sends in National Guard as Protests Continue over Militarized ICE Raids

Democracy Now! — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:14:58 +0000

In Los Angeles, mass street protests have broken out in response to immigration raids. Local police and Border Patrol are cracking down on protesters, while the Trump administration has called in the California National Guard. “They shot thousands of rounds of tear gas, flashbang grenades, all kinds of repressive instruments,” says Ron Gochez, community organizer with Union del Barrio who helped organize some of the protests. He notes many of the protests have also been successful at turning back immigration agents, preventing ICE arrests and detention. “If we organize ourselves, if we resist, we can defend our communities from ICE terror, from the Border Patrol or from any federal agency that wishes to separate our families.”

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

‘They cannot block us,’ says activist on Madleen flotilla aid ship to Gaza

Pacific Media Watch — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 12:57:22 +0000

Pacific Media Watch

One of the 12 activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid vessel Madleen has posted an update on their progress, saying the mission would not be deterred by Israel’s threats to block them.

In a video posted to X, Thiago Ávila said the crew, which includes high-profile Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, was not intimidated by a message they had received from Israel on Thursday, reports Al Jazeera.

He said Israeli authorities had said that the Madleen, which is carrying food and medical supplies, would be blocked from entering Gaza — and that if they attempted to deliver them, they would come under attack.

“It’s important that we understand that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and any other repressive regime throughout history, they actually fear the people, we do not fear them,” he said.

“We know that this is part of a global uprising much larger than this humble mission of 12 people on a small boat. It will not be through force that they will make a way to defeat us.”

While crossing international waters in the Central Mediterranean on its way to Gaza yesterday, the Madleen received a mayday call relayed through one of the Frontex drones operated by Europe’s border security agency.

With no other vessel able to respond, the Madleen diverted to the distressed vessel, where it found 30 to 40 people trapped in a rapidly deflating dinghy.

While the crew of the Madleen were attempting a rescue of their own, they were approached at speed by a unit of the Libyan Coast Guard, specifically one belonging to the Tareq Bin Zayed brigade, which Al Jazeera has previously reported upon.

On realising that the approaching vessel belonged to the Libyan Coast Guard, four dinghy passengers jumped into the water and swam to the Madleen, where they were rescued.

The remainder were taken on board the Libyan Coast Guard’s vessel and presumably returned to Libya.

It’s the 6th day of our journey onboard the Madleen to #breakthesiege of Gaza and create a people’s humanitarian sea corridor! The Freedom Flotilla Coalition will never stop due to the Zionists threats. We know we have billions of people along with the 12 of us on this boat! pic.twitter.com/FfIDDtVbX7

— Thiago Ávila | Gaza Freedom Flotilla (@thiagoavilabr) June 6, 2025

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

Philippines says China Coast Guard fired water cannon at government vessel

Radio Free Asia — Thu, 22 May 2025 23:30:14 +0000

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

How ex-Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg markets war

The Grayzone — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 02:26:51 +0000

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

‘Caught off guard’: EPA proposes to fire hundreds of scientists

Naveena Sadasivam — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 16:42:45 +0000

The mood was grim at a town hall meeting called by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday. The gathering came one day after The New York Times reported a bombshell — Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, plans to dismantle its Office of Research and Development, eliminating 50 to 75 percent of its 1,500 or so chemists, toxicologists, biologists, and other experts. The department, which conducts essential research to inform federal policies, plays a critical role in the agency’s mission to safeguard public health and the environment. Laying off most of its staff, many of whom are career scientists, would leave the EPA without the independent and rigorous science needed to develop effective regulations. No one consulted the office’s leaders about the plan.

Maureen Gwinn, who leads the Office of Research and Development, or ORD, is not a political appointee, and her team learned about the specifics of the proposal when they read about it in the Times. Managers quickly set up an all-hands with the department staff to discuss it.

“There was no preparation,” Holly Wilson, an EPA employee and president of the union that represents its employees, told Grist. “They were caught off guard, and acting as good leaders, wanted to bring their folks together and add some context around what happened.”

Employees from all over the country dialed into the call, which lasted about 30 minutes. They wanted to know when the layoffs would begin, how they would be notified if they were being terminated, and whether buyouts would be offered. One person asked if they could publish their research after being fired. Management had few specific answers.

The Times’ reporting was based on documents the EPA provided to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The proposal, which was submitted to the White House last week and could change in the coming days, calls for dissolving the research office, firing most of its employees, and reassigning those who remain to other roles. Under the plan, the agency would seek a waiver to halve the standard notice period for a “reduction in force” from 30 to 60 days.

“We don’t know which jobs, which pieces are going to go away and which ones stay,” said Wilson. “The uncertainty is what’s causing a lot of the angst.”

It is the latest assault on the agency. Over the last two months, the Trump administration has fired more than 400 of its probationary workers, only to reinstate them after a court mandated it. The agency also shuttered its Office of Environmental Justice and froze funding for various climate programs.

EPA employees had been bracing for these changes. In implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order to reduce the federal workforce, the Office of Management and Budget has required agencies to submit phase two of their “reduction in force” plans by April 14. The Office of Research and Development is the largest department within the agency, and often the subject of presidential efforts to rein it in or expand it. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term, specifically foreshadowed the current events. It recommended eliminating “several ORD offices and programs,” and called the department “bloated, unaccountable, closed, outcome-driven, hostile to public and legislative input, and inclined to pursue political rather than purely scientific goals.”

Oh Canada: We Stand on Guard for Thee

Michael Kidder — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 06:53:57 +0000

When the local bully decides to target you, and you are much smaller; you have a problem. When he takes it further: comes to your home, takes a giant dump in your doorway, and bellows insults and threats; you have a serious problem.

First let us take apart all the idiotic excuses for these unprovoked attacks.

Trade

The ‘master of the deal’ forced the renegotiation of NAFTA, because it was “perhaps the worst trade deal ever made”.

He even got to name the new deal himself in 2018, and make it rhyme with his favourite tune about gay sex; YMCA. You can see him starting to clumsily groove, just for a blink, during his speech at the signing ceremony: “It, sort of, just works: USMCA. USMCA. That’ll be the name, I guess, that, 99 percent of the time, we’ll be hearing: USMCA. It has a good ring to it.” (Trigger warning; watching may result in uncontrollable anal leakage.)

He goes on: “… this new deal will be the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country…” And on: “It means, more than anything else, far more American jobs. And these are high-quality jobs.” And on: … it will transform North America back into a manufacturing powerhouse.” And on “…if you look at this agreement, we formed a great partnership with Mexico and with Canada.” And on “Once approved, this will be a new dawn for the American auto industry and for the American autoworker.” And on “We’re going to be a manufacturing powerhouse… “

He grandstanded his way through the entire process, took most of the credit for the final terms, proudly signed off on the new deal; and now he claims we, somehow, screwed him? Canada’s Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, put one over on the master of the deal? No wonder he so openly despises her; a mere female made him look inept.

Complete bullshit.

Drugs

In 2024; estimates range between .3 and .8% of the fentanyl in the States came from Canada. A US bipartisan committee on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking in 2022 noted: “Canada is not known to be a major source of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals to the United States.” And from a 2020 DEA report “Some fentanyl products are smuggled from Canada into the United States for sale; on a much smaller scale.”

Not to make light of the fact that fentanyl and its family of deliberately poisonous drugs are evil and moving all over the world. Nor that we, like the rest of the world, don’t have our own problems with them.

More bullshit.

Refugees

Yes some humans are entering the US from Canada; but we have the rule of law here; we cannot arrest people for trying to leave the country; so how is that our problem? Maybe he needs to build another big beautiful wall. As a side benefit it might even slow down all the illegal guns and drugs smuggled into Canada from the US? But we will absolutely not be paying for it!

Semi-bullshit. Desperate people will take desperate steps to escape desperate circumstances. Only a few years ago, Canada’s borders were being crossed, illegally, by people escaping the US.

But now, here we are. He pulled the trigger on his tariff threats, and changed them before 24 hours went by.

We cannot spend the next four years being jerked around: tariff – countervailing tariff, tit – tat, kiss the ring – get some kind of break, maybe, or a pause, maybe, or not, maybe. Nothing will ever be finalized; anything we may think settled, a done deal, can be undone on a whim. All we can expect are more threats and insults; more deal breaking; more endless bullshit. There is no dodging this confrontation.

Of course we will, without question, be the bigger losers in a trade war. The juvenile digs about being the 51^st state do hurt; because they hit awfully too close to home. We are, economically, a vassal state to America. Canada bought as heavily into the neo-liberal myth of globalization as any ‘developed’ nation. Some Canadians still loathe Stephen Harper for signing the first NAFTA in 1994. But I suspect some form of a deal would have been made no matter which party was in power. It was a fashion statement of the times.

The fact that many Americans will also suffer because of these stupid tariffs is no solace. We do not wish our fellow humans any ill; they are just more victims of the same blowhard as we are. I might even suggest that most Canadians have more empathy for the inevitable losers in the States, than their own president does.

But, we must do something.

I hate to agree with Ontario Premier Doug Ford but; don’t pussy foot around does have a certain appeal. Don’t just raise the price of our energy and resources; refuse to export them to the US; cut them off, cold. After all “We don’t need them to make our cars, and they make a lot of them. We don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests. We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody.” Okay ‘pal’ here’s your chance; prove it.

We must make every effort to find or expand deals with trustworthy trade partners. Seek out products and markets anywhere but America, preferably in Canada, but anywhere else in the world that meets the environmental and labour standards we espouse. A lot of the world is on this same path right now anyway; they are closely watching the same buffoon we are dealing with. I am fully confident we can find willing, and honest, partners.

None of this will be cheap or easy. The Canadian economy will, most likely, take a catastrophic hit, but sometimes it is better to just rip off the bandage and expose the wound. Yeah, it’s going to hurt like hell; but in the longer term we will be healthier for it.

“Canadian Pride” has long meant mastery of the humble brag. “We are better at self-deprecation than anybody. And, even more annoyingly, we are so much nicer.” It’s not that we don’t know that we have our strengths and virtues, or that we don’t care about our country. It’s simply that waving our naughty bits around, and boasting about them, seems a trifle vainglorious; a bit too ‘American’.

I have tried very hard to maintain the Canadian reputation for being hopelessly polite but, occasionally, one must speak of harsher truths with harsher words.

‘Sorry’ but… Donald Trump is an ego onanist, a smelly wet fart in a crowded room, a stain on the species; and proud of it all. He is, simply put, an unrepentant and irredeemable piece of shit. ‘Eh’.

The post Oh Canada: We Stand on Guard for Thee appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael Kidder.

Advocates: NY Prison Guard Strike Reveals History of Repression & Violence Against Prison Activism

Democracy Now! — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 16:18:54 +0000

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

Advocates: NY Prison Guard Strike Is Part of History of Repression & Violence Against Prison Activism

Democracy Now! — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:47:44 +0000

We speak with Jose Saldaña, director of Release Aging People in Prison, about a wildcat strike by New York prison guards who claim limits on solitary confinement have made their work more dangerous. “The people who are living in a dangerous environment are the incarcerated men and women,” says Saldaña, who notes the strike began the same week murder charges were announced against six of the guards who brutally beat to death handcuffed prisoner Robert Brooks in an attack captured on body-camera video. “The whole world saw it, and they’re questioning: How long has this been going on in the prison system? This illegal strike is to erase that consciousness that’s building,” says Saldaña. We are also joined by anthropologist Orisanmi Burton, who studies prisons and says the proliferation of solitary confinement and other harsh measures is directly linked to political organizing behind bars starting in the late 1960s. “Prisons in the United States are best understood as institutions of low-intensity warfare that masquerade as apolitical instruments of crime control,” says Burton, author of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt.

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

"Dead Calm": BBC Film on Greek Coast Guard Abandoning Asylum Seekers at Sea Amid European Crackdown

Democracy Now! — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:00:10 +0000

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

“Dead Calm”: BBC Film on Greek Coast Guard Abandoning Asylum Seekers at Sea Amid European Crackdown

Democracy Now! — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 13:33:07 +0000

As we move into 2025, we look at how the world is cracking down on migrants and asylum seekers, and the dangers they face when trying to flee their countries due to persecution, economic conditions, the climate crisis and more. As Greek prosecutors open a murder investigation of “unknown perpetrators” following a damning exposé of the deadly crackdown on asylum seekers by the Greek coast guard, we revisit the BBC film, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? The investigation revealed evidence the coast guard routinely abducted and abandoned asylum seekers in the Mediterranean Sea. The film found the Greek coast guard caused the deaths of dozens of migrants over a period of three years, including of nine asylum seekers who had reached Greek soil but were taken back out to sea and thrown overboard. “We really have no real clue about the true numbers of the people that are crossing [the Mediterranean Sea]. Many people don’t make it,” producer Lucile Smith told Democracy Now! in an interview last year, when the film was released. “And when people do arrive, they tend to disappear, because … if you are caught by the authorities in Greece, you will be most likely subjected to some very serious violence.”

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

Coast Guard Commander Elizabeth Nakagawa Nearly Died After Tricare Denied Miscarriage Care

ProPublica — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:48:18 +0000

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by ProPublica.

A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.

by Erin Edwards for ProPublica and Robin Fields — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 10:00:00 +0000

by Erin Edwards for ProPublica and Robin Fields

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

The night the EMTs carried Elizabeth Nakagawa from her home, bleeding and in pain, the tarp they’d wrapped her in reminded her of a body bag.

Nakagawa, 39, is a Coast Guard commander: stoic, methodical, an engineer by trade. But as they maneuvered her past her young daughters’ bedroom, down the narrow steps and into the ambulance, she felt a stab of fear. She might never see her girls again.

Then came a blast of anger. She’d been treated for a miscarriage before. She knew her life never should have been in danger.

Earlier that day, April 3, 2023, Nakagawa had been scheduled to have a surgical procedure called a D&C, or dilation and curettage, to remove fetal tissue after losing a very wanted pregnancy. But that morning, she was told the surgery had been canceled because Tricare, the military’s health insurance plan, refused to pay for it.

While her doctor appealed, Nakagawa waited. Then the cramps and bleeding began.

In recent months, ProPublica and other media outlets have told the stories of women who died or nearly died when state abortion restrictions imposed after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision impeded them from getting critical care.

But long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, military service members and their families have faced strict limits on abortion services, which are commonly used to resolve miscarriages.

Under a decades-old federal law, the military is prohibited from paying for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. This applies even to service members based in states where abortion is legal; Nakagawa lives in Sonoma County, California.

There’s also no exception for catastrophic or fatal fetal anomalies. In such cases, service members either have to pay out of pocket for abortions or carry to term fetuses that won’t survive outside the womb.

Tricare does allow abortions in cases like Nakagawa’s, in which the fetus has no heartbeat. But even then, some doctors who treat military service members say that Tricare requires more documentation and takes longer to approve these procedures than other insurers, putting women at risk.

“There definitely have been cases where our Tricare patients have required emergency services, emergency D&C procedures, blood transfusions, things that have been critical to lifesaving care because their procedure had yet to occur,” said Dr. Lauren Robertson, an OB-GYN who has served military members and their spouses in San Diego for more than a decade.

Erin Edwards is a Navy veteran and reporter who has been covering reproductive health care access for military members. She’s spoken with military and civilian doctors, researchers and patients across the country about the challenges service members have long faced in obtaining reproductive health care.

Robin Fields is a longtime ProPublica reporter who has written about maternal deaths and near-deaths, as well as about the reliability of data gathered on maternal mortality.

If you want to get in touch and learn more about how we work, email Edwards at erin@moseyroad.com or Fields at robin.fields@propublica.org. We take your privacy very seriously.

“It just feels very unnecessary.”

Since the Dobbs decision, abortion care for service members seems to be coming under heightened scrutiny, said retired Rear Adm. Dana Thomas, who was until recently the Coast Guard’s chief medical officer and advocated for Nakagawa.

“Trust me, post Roe v. Wade, I’m sure people felt there was much more of a spotlight,” Thomas said. “I think they were more guarded after June of ’22.”

After being rushed to the emergency room, Nakagawa hemorrhaged for four more hours before doctors performed the surgery Tricare had refused to authorize. Later, Tricare and Defense Department officials would all agree that Nakagawa should have been treated as her doctor recommended, and she said they told her they’d taken steps to prevent future mistakes.

But her experience, which doctors say nearly cost Nakagawa her life, laid bare the challenges service members have long faced in obtaining reproductive health care. And it raises questions about whether the Supreme Court’s ruling has created a chilling effect that has further complicated access to these procedures.

Officials at the Defense Health Agency, which runs the military health system, including Tricare, did not respond to specific questions from ProPublica, but they provided a statement saying its policies haven’t budged.

“There have not been any changes to Tricare coverage or documentation requirements for medically necessary care of D&Cs following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision,” the statement said. “Medically necessary care was, and continues to be, covered.”

The agency declined to answer questions about Nakagawa, saying that “as a matter of practice” it doesn’t discuss individual beneficiaries’ care. (ProPublica is involved in an unrelated public records lawsuit with the DHA.)

As a senior officer, Nakagawa felt duty-bound to press for answers about what happened to her.

“The abortion policy, in theory, is supposed to protect life, and in my case it did the opposite,” Nakagawa said. “It almost led to my children not having a mother.”

After the Supreme Court upended Roe, the Biden administration took steps to reassure service members that their access to reproductive health care would remain unaffected by a wave of state abortion bans.

An October 2022 memo from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pledged to facilitate leave for service members seeking abortions that were not covered by Tricare, and to pay for travel if care wasn’t available nearby. It also emphasized that these procedures would be “consistent with applicable federal law.”

The statute barring the Defense Department from paying for most abortions goes back to 1985 and mirrors language in what’s called the Hyde Amendment. Named for its author, Henry Hyde, a Republican representative from Illinois, Congress has attached the amendment to spending bills since the late 1970s to prohibit the use of federal funds on abortion.

With Congress in control of military spending, abortion care is highly politicized, said Kyleanne Hunter, a Marine Corps combat veteran and senior political scientist at RAND Corp. “There’s been a lot of backlash and a lot of scrutiny and a lot of congressional disapproval as to how the DOD has engaged with abortion care, D&C care and the like.”

About 9.5 million people, including active-duty service members and their families as well as military retirees and their dependents, rely on Tricare for health services. Women make up a growing portion of the active-duty force, more than 17%. They also leave the military at higher rates. Research by RAND and others suggests the military’s reproductive health policies may make it harder to recruit and retain them.

Dr. Toni Marengo, a former Navy OB-GYN, said she left the service in part because she felt unable to provide patients with appropriate care. Many of them only discovered how sharply Tricare’s policies curtailed access to procedures like D&Cs when they needed them.

“It was like living in a pre-Roe world,” said Marengo, now chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest.

The effects have been felt for decades. In 1994, Maureen Griffin and her then-husband, a captain in the Air National Guard, ended her pregnancy after learning their baby had anencephaly, a fatal birth defect. They found out the military considered her induced labor an abortion when she got a phone call from a bill collector for the hospital seeking thousands of dollars in reimbursement for the procedure.

“I said: ‘We have full coverage. My husband’s in the military.’ And they said, ‘They don’t pay for abortions,’” Griffin recalled. “We were completely blindsided. I mean, no one called it an abortion. It was a horrible tragedy.”

Griffin, then known as Maureen Britell, was so outraged that she sued the Defense Department, winning a judgment in federal district court in 2002. Two years later, an appeals court reversed the decision, upholding the Defense Department’s refusal to cover abortions in such circumstances.

Twenty-five years after Griffin’s pregnancy, Samantha Babcock spent the equivalent of seven paychecks to fly home from her husband’s Air Force base in Okinawa, Japan, for an abortion Tricare wouldn’t cover.

She was five months pregnant when doctors told her that her fetus had multiple abnormalities and wasn’t viable.

The grief was crushing. Then she found out that, by law, the military couldn’t perform or pay for a surgery called a D&E, or dilation and evacuation, which her military doctors agreed was the safest option. She and her family paid $14,000 — most of it for plane tickets — with help from a GoFundMe so that she could go home to Portland, Oregon, to get the procedure.

She still can’t believe such a step was necessary.

“I assumed Tricare had my best interest at heart,” she said. “If the condition was fatal, why wouldn’t they help me?”

Babcock said her specialist told her that the military would pay to transfer her temporarily to Hawaii for more testing. They also offered to move her family to a location where they would have access to specialty care for the baby in the unlikely chance she survived outside of the womb.

For Babcock, that was untenable. “I did not want to keep growing a baby that wouldn’t live,” she said.

In August 2022, Thomas, the Coast Guard’s chief medical officer, was galvanized into action when a service member sought help to end her pregnancy after receiving a diagnosis similar to Babcock’s.

Doctors had recommended that, like Babcock, she have a D&E. Because the fetus still had a heartbeat, Tricare would not approve the procedure.

Thomas called Tricare daily trying to find a solution, then elevated the case to leaders at the DHA, which sets policy for the health plan. “We have to do something,” she told them.

Dana Thomas, a retired rear admiral and chief medical officer at the Coast Guard (Caroline Gutman, special to ProPublica)

Tricare stuck to its denial even after the service member’s doctor appended a note explaining that continuing the pregnancy would endanger the patient’s life.

That was the first case Thomas had taken on after Dobbs.

The second was Nakagawa’s.

Nakagawa and her husband, Matt, met a couple years after earning engineering degrees from the Coast Guard Academy in the mid-2000s. Their path to a family was long and bittersweet. In 2015, they suffered a miscarriage. A year later, their first daughter was born. Then came a second miscarriage, followed by the birth of a healthy girl.

For the next three years, they tried for another child. Then Nakagawa got pregnant in 2021, only to learn at 10 weeks there was no fetal heartbeat. She waited, hoping to miscarry naturally, then tried abortion pills.

When a follow-up exam showed she hadn’t passed all the fetal tissue, her OB-GYN scheduled a D&C. The procedure was approved by Tricare, and she had the surgery soon afterward.

By early 2023, Nakagawa had risen to become chief of engineering at the Coast Guard’s training center in Petaluma, California, and her husband had left the service and was supporting her as a stay-at-home dad. They were thrilled to learn she was pregnant, only to have their joy turn to devastation when two ultrasounds showed that once again, her fetus had no heartbeat.

This time, since abortion pills hadn’t worked in 2021, Nakagawa and her OB-GYN agreed the best course would be to schedule a D&C as soon as possible. Her doctor’s office scheduled the procedure for Monday, April 3, and requested approval in advance, or prior authorization, from Tricare.

Then, five hours before the procedure was scheduled to begin, the office told Nakagawa the surgery was canceled — Tricare had refused to cover it.

In its denial letter, Health Net Federal Services, the contractor that administered claims for Tricare’s western region, said the services requested were “not a covered benefit.”

The insurer’s letter also said it had requested additional information from Nakagawa’s doctor, but that the information had not been sent. (Health Net declined to answer questions from ProPublica about Nakagawa even though she waived her right to privacy.)

Her doctor maintains that wasn’t the case. She declined to be identified, citing concerns about safety.

“Tricare has always been difficult to work with for coverage of women’s health care — they require records more than other insurances — this often creates a delay in care,” the doctor said via text.

The office staff appealed the denial, telling Nakagawa they’d provided documentation of the ultrasounds showing no fetal heartbeat. The staff also told her a Tricare medical director wasn’t available to review it that day and that it might take an additional three to five days to get a response.

Nakagawa called Tricare for answers herself, only to be told her options were to wait or pay out of pocket — not only for the surgery but for any follow-up care, including mental health counseling.

“It was surreal. I was angry and shaking,” Nakagawa said. She couldn’t understand why Tricare had approved her D&C in 2021 under similar circumstances, then denied the same care two years later.

Overwhelmed by emotion, she climbed into bed and cried herself to sleep.

At about 5 p.m., her doctor provided a prescription for abortion pills as a backup plan. But before Nakagawa could pick it up, she started to miscarry.

The first signs were mild cramping and spotting. Soon after, the fetus passed. Nakagawa yelled for her husband and sobbed. They consoled themselves with the thought that they’d made it through the hardest part.

“At least this is over,” Nakagawa recalled saying. “At least God’s giving us a break for once.”

Then the hemorrhaging started — fist-sized clots of blood that soaked through sanitary pads in minutes. Nakagawa lay in the fetal position on towels, in so much pain she couldn’t sit up.

Around 9 p.m., her husband called the doctor, who recommended they go to the emergency room.

At the hospital, she was given fluids, a clotting drug and a transfusion, but her bleeding continued.

After four hours, doctors decided her condition was critical and they needed to intervene. They performed a D&C to remove the remaining tissue.

Nakagawa’s recovery took more than a week. Lying on her couch, unable to walk, she was determined to ensure other service women would get the care she was denied. Taking a risk, she banged out a long email to Thomas, who had a reputation for being approachable.

“I feel compelled to report a traumatic experience I went through that will undoubtedly impact more women in the CG and DOD if the TRICARE policy is not changed,” the email began. “The summary is that I nearly lost my life last week due largely to a TRICARE policy regarding miscarriages and abortions.”

Thomas connected Nakagawa to the Defense Health Agency’s chief medical officer, Dr. Paul Cordts, who called her personally a month after her emergency surgery.

Nakagawa said that Cordts seemed apologetic and even angry on her behalf. “This shouldn’t have happened to you,” she recalled him saying, adding that he’d get to the bottom of what went wrong. (Cordts didn’t respond to emails from ProPublica.)

Two days later, a new record appeared in Nakagawa’s Tricare file: a letter approving the scheduled D&C she’d never received and no longer needed. “Please contact the provider to schedule your appointment(s),” it said.

Cordts also arranged for Col. John Verghese, Tricare’s chief of clinical oversight and integration, to look into her case. Nakagawa said she had two calls with Verghese, who looped in a senior official at Health Net, the Tricare contractor that had dealt with the request to cover her D&C.

In one, she said, Verghese acknowledged Tricare had become more conservative in reviewing requests for D&Cs, requiring more documentation to justify approving these procedures. (Verghese, who has retired, declined to answer questions from ProPublica about the case.)

He admitted that until her case, Tricare hadn’t understood that delaying or denying care could put women at risk, she said. This infuriated Nakagawa.

“I just said, ‘Well, maybe you didn’t realize there would be physical negative consequences, but you had to know there would be mental and emotional consequences to making women carry around their [dead] fetuses’” after a miscarriage.

Verghese quickly apologized, she said.

On the final call, Nakagawa said that Verghese and the Health Net official told her that from now on, they would no longer require doctors to submit proof of no fetal heart tones to get approvals for D&Cs and would speed up reviews of appeals.

In its statement to ProPublica, the DHA maintained that Tricare’s coverage and documentation requirements for D&Cs have not changed.

Nakagawa is one of few women in senior leadership within Coast Guard civil engineering. She remains committed to serving in the military. But she worries about the impact the Defense Department’s reproductive health policies could have on service members and their spouses and daughters. Junior members especially might be less able to advocate for themselves, she said.

“At the very least, this policy will likely encourage women, like myself, to work for a company that has insurance that will cover these procedures,” she said, “At the worst, it will lead to service members or their dependents losing their lives.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Erin Edwards for ProPublica and Robin Fields.

Typhoon Krathon rescue: 19 sailors airlifted to safety by Taiwan coast guard | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 17:08:24 +0000

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

Uyghur scholar’s prison guard gets 7 years for revealing ‘secrets’

By Shohret Hoshur and Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 19:57:36 +0000

A Uyghur prison guard has been sentenced to seven years in jail for divulging information about the condition of prominent Uyghur political prisoner Ilham Tohti, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Gopur Abdurreshit, 51, was arrested on Feb. 1 for disclosing information about Tohti, an economist and professor who is serving a life sentence on separatism-related charges, said a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals.

Tohti, now 54, taught economics at Central University for Nationalities in Beijing. Some of his research focused on Han Chinese-Uyghur relations, and he advocated for the implementation of greater regional autonomy in Xinjiang, where 12 million Uyghurs live.

Authorities arrested Tohti in January 2014 and prosecutors accused him of promoting Uyghur independence. After a two-day show trial, a court sentenced him to life in prison in September of that year.

Little has been known about Tohti’s condition since his family last saw him in 2013 or communicated with him in 2017.

Solitary confinement

Abdurreshit, who worked at Prison No. 1 in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, oversaw Tohti for six years, said Abduweli Ayup, founder of Uyghur Hjelp, a Norway-based nonprofit organization, also known as Uyghuryar, that documents Uyghurs who have been arrested and imprisoned.

During that time, he revealed information about Tohti’s condition to others, including details of his solitary confinement, his limited exposure to sunlight for just 15 minutes per week, and news about his deteriorating health, Ayup said.

“Gopur communicated information about Ilham Tohti’s deteriorating health, including his white hair,” Ayup said.

Guzailai Nu'er, the wife of Ilham Tohti, speaks as she has an interview with Reuters by a phone from window of her house in Beijing, Jan. 17, 2014. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

A police officer who declined to give his name so he could speak openly said Abdurreshit warned other inmates that Tohti had been put in solitary confinement for violating prison rules.

That information reached the relatives of those inmates, raising wider concern about Tohti’s well-being.

Authorities arrested Abdurreshit for “intentionally spreading sensitive and negative information,” Ayup said.

Another police officer in Korla, Abdurreshit’s hometown, who received his verdict document, told Radio Free Asia that he relayed the court ruling and sentence to the guard’s family, though he did not know the full reason for his arrest.

“There are rumors that he advised other inmates to learn from Ilham Tohti’s mistakes and warned them to follow orders to avoid trouble,” he said.

Since Abdurreshit’s arrest, authorities have been monitoring his parents and younger brother, he added.

Don’t share secrets

A prison supervisor declined to answer questions about Abdureshit, but said there was an ongoing discussion about “not sharing secrets and learning from his mistakes.”

Abdurreshit joined the military in the mid-1990s and attended a military academy in Urumqi, called Wulumuqi in Chinese, Ayup said. After retiring, he became a police officer and began working at the Prison No. 1 in Urumqi.

“The majority of the officers are Chinese, and he is the only Uyghur officer who has remained for an extended period,” Ayup told RFA.

10th anniversary of Uyghur academic’s arrest marked with calls for release

‘Eliticide’ as China jails Uyghur intellectuals to erase culture

Jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti awarded Sakharov Prize for dedication to human rights

Human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly demanded that Beijing free Tohti, one of the most well-known Uyghur political prisoners.

This month, Amnesty International called on Chinese authorities to release Tohti during the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated in China as a time for family reunions.

Since his imprisonment, Tohti has received several international awards, including the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize and the Sakharov Prize. Earlier this year, two U.S. lawmakers nominated Tohti for the Nobel Peace Prize. U.S. lawmakers also nominated him for the same prize in 2019.

Tohti’s daughter, Jewher llham, who lives in the United States, told RFA in July that her family has not received news about his health since they last communicated with him in 2017.

She said the international community should not forget about her father whose case was “one of the first and one of the harshest cases” of Uyghurs being arrested and jailed.

“By supporting my father’s release, I believe it will help bring hope to the Uyghur community who are deeply traumatized and devastated,” she said.

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

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Shohret Hoshur and Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur.

Vietnam coast guard holds rare live fire exercise | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:17:31 +0000

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

Vietnam coast guard holds rare live fire exercise

By RFA Staff — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 08:52:00 +0000

Vietnam’s coast guard has held a rare live fire exercise to test responses to security threats, in an area off its central coast on the South China Sea.

The Sept. 5-11 exercise was conducted by the Vietnam Coast Guard Region 3, in the waters off Binh Thuan province, the force said in a press release.

Coast Guard Region 3 with headquarters in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province is one of Vietnam’s four coast guard zones, responsible for safeguarding its claims in the South China Sea as tensions are rising in the regional waterway.

The tactical training and live five exercise – aimed at boosting combat readiness – is “one of the top priorities” of the coast guard, Col. Nguyen Minh Khanh, Region 3’s deputy commander, was quoted as saying.

Coast guard personnel were responding to multiple scenarios such as "threats to sovereignty and security," illegal incursions into Vietnam’s waters by foreign vessels, piracy and search-and-rescue and disaster relief.

Vietnam coast guard personnel during live fire exercises Sept. 5-11, 2024. (Vietnam Coast Guard)

Photographs and video clips released by the coast guard show troops, equipped with artillery, anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers, shooting at airborne targets as well as firing water cannons and warning off foreign ships.

“They have accomplished all the tasks with excellence,” Col. Khanh said.

Vietnam rarely publicizes such activities despite having invested heavily in developing its coast guard in recent years.

Vietnam, Philippines to sign defense cooperation agreement

Vietnam’s coast guard to hold first drills with Philippines

The U.S. coast guard is reportedly planning to transfer the last of three Hamilton-class cutters to Vietnam in the near future.

Maritime security is a defense priority for Vietnam, one of six parties that claim parts of the South China Sea, along with China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Vietnam coast guard personnel during live fire exercises Sept. 5-11, 2024. (Vietnam Coast Guard)

China, however, holds the most expansive claim and its authorities have become more aggressive against neighboring countries in disputed waters.

This month, coast guard vessels from Vietnam and the Philippines took part in their first joint drills off Manila but they limited their activity to firefighting and search-and-rescue as Vietnam is careful not to be seen as siding militarily with any country.

The Philippines and China have this year been in a tense standoff over disputed features in the South China Sea.

The Philippines last week recalled a coast guard vessel from the disputed Sabina Shoal but officials pledged never to “abandon our sovereign rights over these waters.”

Edited by Mike Firn.

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

Philippine coast guard ship leaves disputed shoal in South China Sea

By RFA Staff — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 03:41:27 +0000

The Philippine coast guard vessel at the center of a standoff with China in the South China Sea has left the disputed Sabina Shoal, according to vessel tracking data obtained by RFA.

Radio Free Asia tried to contact Philippine government agencies for comment on why the vessel had left the shoal, which is about 140 km (85 miles) west of Palawan island, but did not receive a response by time of publication. China has not commented.

Data provided by the website MarineTraffic, which uses automatic identification system (AIS) signals to track ships, show that the BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) is back in the Sulu Sea near the Philippines’ Balabac island, about 200 km (125 miles) to the south of the shoal.

Ship tracking specialists told RFA the 2,200-ton coast guard flagship left the hotly disputed shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda, at around 1 p.m. on Friday.

The shoal is claimed by both countries but is entirely within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where the Philippines holds rights to explore for natural resources.

BRP Teresa Magbanua is one of the largest and most modern vessels of the Philippine coast guard. It was first deployed to Sabina Shoal in April to monitor what the Philippines fears is a Chinese plan to reclaim land at the shoal, as China has done elsewhere in the South China Sea.

Philippine officials insisted that the vessel could remain there for as long as necessary but China denounced what it saw as the “illegal grounding” of the BRP Teresa Magbanua and deployed a large number of ships there to keep watch. The Philippines denied that the vessel had been grounded.

The standoff resulted in several collisions between Philippine and Chinese vessels, especially during Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Teresa Magbanua, raising fears of a more serious conflict between the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, and an increasingly assertive China.

Beijing feared that by maintaining the vessel’s semi-permanent presence at the shoal, Manila aimed to establish de-facto control over it, similar to what it has done at the Second Thomas Shoal, where an old Philippine warship, BRP Sierra Madre, was deliberately run aground to serve as an outpost.

For its part, the Philippines is worried that without the presence of its authorities, Chinese ships will swarm the area and effectively take control of it, as happened at Scarborough Shoal – another disputed South China Sea feature – where China has had control since 2012.

Sabina Shoal is close to an area believed to be rich in oil and gas, and also served as the main staging ground for resupply missions to the Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal.

Lower the tension

“The parallels are unavoidable,” said Ray Powell, director of the U.S.-based SeaLight project at Stanford University, referring to what China did at the Scarborough Shoal.

“China is also likely to declare victory – hard to avoid that conclusion,” said the maritime security analyst who monitors developments in the South China Sea, referring to the withdrawal of the Philippine ship.

On Sept. 12, Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Maria Theresa P. Lazaro met China’s Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong to discuss the situation at the shoal.

The Chinese side reportedly urged the Philippines to immediately withdraw its vessels while “Lazaro reaffirmed the consistent position of the Philippines and explored ways to lower the tension in the area,” the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

It is not clear whether the BRP Teresa Magbanua withdrew as a result of that consultation.

Philippine analyst Chester Cabalza, president of the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank, described the withdrawal of the ship as “anti-climactic,” adding that he thought both sides should withdraw from the vicinity of the shoal, which is in an important sea lane.

Cabalza said if the Philippines and China had reached any agreement in their Sept. 12 consultation, that would become evident in the absence of any “swarming of Chinese armada” at the shoal.

“The ball is with China now,” the analyst told RFA’s affiliate BenarNews.

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China, Philippines trade blame over 'ramming' at disputed shoal

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-philippines-ramming-sabina-08312024064753.html

China releases report to fortify claim over disputed shoal in South China Sea

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-sabina-shoal-report-08302024043714.html

Philippines, China clash near disputed shoal in South China Sea

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-philippines-shoal-clash-08262024023722.html

*Jason Guterriez in Manila contributed to this report.”

Editing by RFA Staff

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

To guard against Chinese buildup, Philippines will not leave Sabina Shoal

By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 08:20:52 +0000

The Philippines said Tuesday it would remain indefinitely in a South China Sea shoal within its exclusive economic zone to ensure that Beijing does not engage there in building-related activities.

Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, said the military branch had deployed a ship near Sabina Shoal to monitor the presence of Chinese vessels that have congregated near the area. The West Philippine Sea is Manila’s name for South China Sea waters inside its Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.

Sabina Shoal is a reef in the Spratly Islands that lies within the Philippine EEZ. China calls the shoal Xiabin Reef, while the Philippines refers to it as Sabina Shoal.

An EEZ gives a coastal state exclusive rights to regulate fishing activities, explore and exploit natural resources within the zone’s waters, seabed and subsoil, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.

Trinidad said the Navy had monitored an “unusual pile up of crushed corals” in the area, forcing the Philippine Coast Guard to send a ship to monitor activities there. He said the Chinese side was being guarded by China Coast Guard vessel 5901, which experts have described as a 12,000-ton “monster ship.”

“It has been there since 30 July, until this morning, so we’re watching them [and] they are watching us,” Trinidad told a press forum on the West Philippine Sea.

“We have increased [our] presence in Sabina Shoal or Escoda just to ensure that there is no man-made facility to pile up crushed corals on the shoal,” he said, adding that a Chinese research and survey vessel, Ke Xue San Hao, had been tracked sailing and passing through Sabina Shoal. “We have informed appropriate government agencies about this.”

“It has been crisscrossing the area,” the past week and a half, Trinidad said, adding that Philippine Coast Guard vessels backed by the Navy would stay in the area on a rotating basis as long as the Chinese were also there.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to queries for comment. But on Sunday, it accused the Philippines of illegally stranding several vessels in the area, including a coast guard ship.

Trinidad maintained that the situation “is not a standoff” similar to what happened on Scarborough Shoal, which is also within Manila’s South China Sea territory, but which China has effectively occupied since 2012.

Philippine coast guard personnel aboard the BRP Cabra monitor Chinese vessels (right) at Sabina Shoal, a South China Sea outcrop claimed by Manila and located about 135 kms (73 nautical miles) west of the Philippine island of Palawan, in a handout photo taken on April 27, 2021. (Handout/Philippine Coast Guard via Agence France-Presse)

The Philippines took China to an international court of arbitration over the incident and in 2016 the body ruled in favor of the Southeast Asian country. China, however, has refused to recognize the ruling, and maintains that it owns nearly all of the South China Sea, including in waters that reach the shores of its neighbors.

Trinidad said China had reclaimed “roughly around 3,000 hectares” in the South China Sea, including Philippine waters. He said the areas that Beijing now controls were already militarized.

“They have airstrips. They have harbors for warships. There are structures on land that we can only surmise are aircraft hangars. They have military-grade communications equipment,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

China coast guard seizes Taiwan fishing boat near Kinmen

By RFA Staff — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 05:58:25 +0000

China seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel in waters near the outlying Kinmen islands, Taiwan’s coast guard said on Wednesday, the latest in a recent series of incidents that has raised tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

The coast guard’s deputy director-general, Hsieh Ching-chin, told a press briefing in Taipei that the boat was detained at a location northeast of Kinmen on Tuesday evening.

The Penghu-registered boat Da Jin Man 88 with six crew, most of them Indonesian migrant workers, was fishing for squid outside Taiwan-controlled waters when the Chinese coast guard boarded it and forcibly diverted it to a port in mainland China.

The Taiwanese coast guard dispatched three ships in an attempt to rescue the fishing boat but had to stop to avoid escalating tensions as more Chinese ships approached the scene, the coast guard said earlier.

Kinmen is less than 10 km (6.2 miles) from China’s Fujian province.

Despite some tacit boundaries between the two sides, Chinese and Taiwanese fishermen often operate in the area without problems.

However, as tension rises between Beijing and the government of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te, the presence of Chinese law enforcement vessels around Kinmen has increased.

Cross-Strait tensions at risk of rising after Kinmen incident

Taiwan’s Kinmen serves as a reminder of China’s aggression

Beijing noticeably stepped up patrols in the area after an incident in February, when two Chinese fishermen drowned while being chased by Taiwan’s coast guard.

China has also announced a unilateral fishing moratorium in the waters it claims.

Hsieh said that China should clarify details surrounding the Da Jin Man 88’s detention. Normally, if caught during fishing bans, fishermen are released after paying a fine.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and the Fisheries Agency are communicating with relevant Chinese authorities to secure the fishing vessel’s release, the Taiwanese coast guard said in a statement.

The island’s defense minister, Wellington Koo, said last month that China was trying to normalize its increased incursions into the waters around Taiwan’s outlying islands.

The Chinese coast guard has reportedly adopted a new model of conducting law enforcement near Kinmen, by expanding its scope and intensity, as well as making it “all-weather enforcement.”

Edited by Mike Firn.

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

Four Chinese Coast Guard vessels were driven out of the waters near Kinmen Island | Radio Free Asia

Radio Free Asia — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:12:23 +0000

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

Four Chinese Coast Guard vessels were driven out of the waters near Kinmen Island | Radio Free Asia

Radio Free Asia — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:08:43 +0000

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

Philippines denies its troops pointed guns at Chinese coast guard personnel

By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 16:10:00 +0000

The Philippines on Tuesday rejected Beijing’s allegations that Filipino troops had pointed guns at Chinese coast guard personnel after they “dangerously approached” a military outpost in the disputed South China Sea.

China’s state-run media on Sunday said that Filipino marines stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era naval ship run aground on Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal, had aimed their weapons at rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) deployed by a China Coast Guard ship on May 19.

Philippine military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. disputed the account, saying the troops were armed but followed strict rules of engagement and had acted “with the highest level of professionalism, restraint and discipline.”

“We are denying that any of our soldiers pointed their guns deliberately …” Brawner said at a press briefing Tuesday. “But we will not deny the fact that they were armed because the BRP Sierra Madre is a commissioned navy ship and therefore it is authorized to have weapons.

Brawner was echoing comments he had made in an interview with GMA news program “24 Oras” a day earlier.

“We have that right because of the concept of self-defense. We have the right to defend ourselves from any armed attack or external attack,” he said.

Manila deliberately ran the rusty ship aground in 1999 to serve as its military outpost at the shoal. Since then, it has had to dispatch ships and boats regularly to deliver fresh supplies to the military personnel onboard the BRP Sierra Madre.

Brawner accused the China Coast Guard of deploying RHIBs to intercept supplies that were being air-dropped to the Philippine troops.

The Chinese RHIBs, Brawner said, came “very, very close” to the BRP Sierra Madre and from the point of view of troops on board “posed a danger or a threat.”

The Chinese coast guard seized one of the four bags – which were dropped and contained food and some medicine – and later scattered the supplies at sea, Brawner said.

“Such behavior is unacceptable and undermines efforts to maintain peace and stability in the region,” Brawner said.

The incident adds to rising tensions in the South China Sea. China claims almost all of the mineral-rich waterway while dismissing competing claims from the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam and Taiwan.

In 2016, an international arbitration court ruled in favor of the Philippines, throwing out China’s sweeping historical claims. Beijing has never accepted the decision.

China has occupied Scarborough Shoal, which lies within Manila’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, for more than a decade.

Last week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., during a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore, hit out at China’s “assertive actions that aim to propagate excessive, baseless claims through force, intimidation and deception.”

The China Embassy in Manila did not reply to requests for comment on Brawner’s statement, but sought to debunk Marcos’ speech in Singapore.

“China’s territorial sovereignty over maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea are based on solid historical and legal grounds,” the Chinese Embassy said on Monday, quoting a foreign ministry spokesperson.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

South China Sea Drama Unfolds

CGTN — Sat, 18 May 2024 17:40:53 +0000

A Filipino civilian convoy called “Atin Ito” claims to have breached China’s blockade around the Huangyan Dao, also known as Scarborough Shoal, in the South China Sea. The convoy reportedly aimed to resupply Filipino fishermen but stopped 50 nautical miles from the shoal. The Philippine Coast Guard and Navy monitored the mission. What are the real goals behind it? Are the fishermen being exploited, and are there other forces at play? Join us as we uncover the real story behind this high-stakes maritime drama.

The post South China Sea Drama Unfolds first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by CGTN.

Philippines accuses China’s coast guard of damaging its vessel in the South China Sea

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 16:28:00 +0000

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

Philippines accuses China’s coast guard of damaging its vessel in the South China Sea

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 16:15:33 +0000

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

Did China Coast Guard ships ignore ‘prohibited waters’ around Taiwan’s Kinmen area?

By Alan Lu for Asia Fact Check Lab — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:24:01 +0000

Tensions between China and Taiwan have flared following the death of two Chinese fishermen near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island in early February.

In the wake of that incident, Chinese-language media outlets claimed that China ignores Taiwanese boundaries around the island, and that Chinese Coast Guard vessels entered Taiwan’s “prohibited” waters, closer to the island, during Feb. 25 drills.

However, a study of open-source intelligence that tracks ship movements showed that the coast guard vessels in fact mostly avoided crossing into “prohibited” waters, briefly doing so only twice between Feb. 25 and March 7.

Two zones

Kinmen, which is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from mainland China, is surrounded by two zones of ocean that Taiwan has barred mainland Chinese vessels from entering.

The zones are identical on Kinmen’s west and north coast, closer to mainland China, but they are split into two zones on the south and east side: an outer zone called “restricted waters” and an inner zone closer to the island called “prohibited waters.”

The latter line marking is considered a de facto sea border with China.

Riyue Tantian — a subsidiary social media account of China Central Television, or CCTV — posted a video on Weibo on Feb 26, claiming that its live footage shows China Coast Guard vessels entering Taiwan’s prohibited waters around Kinmen during drills conducted the day before.

Parts of both the video and accompanying text were taken from two separate coast guard press releases earlier that day.

Several Taiwanese news outlets have also made similar claims about the purported intrusion from Chinese vessels, with one political talk show even claiming that China has deployed “paramilitary operations” against Kinmen.

But the claims are misleading. Below is what AFCL found.

Methodology

To pinpoint Chinese ships’ exact location around Kinmen, AFCL sourced real-time location data for these ships from Marine Traffic – an open-source platform regularly cited by mainstream news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The platform only displays data for ships that broadcast their location using radio signals, which are typically relayed via satellites, also known as an open Automatic Identification System, or AIS.

While it’s common for most ships to emit these signals, there are instances where these signals are deliberately deactivated, often by military ships to maintain operational secrecy. AFCL’s analysis focuses on Chinese vessels whose AIS was recorded by Marine Traffic around Kinmen.

After taking screenshots of vessel movements, AFCL then manually added lines over screenshots, illustrating the locations of the relevant Chinese ships as well as “restricted” and “prohibited” waters around Kinmen based on official public data from Taiwan.

What happened on Feb. 25?

Seven Chinese Coast Guard, or CCG, vessels are recorded as patrolling around Kinmen on Feb. 25, according to the Marine Traffic data.

They include two large former military ships (CCG 2202 and CCG 2203) and five normal patrol ships (CCG 14608, CCG 14609, CCG 14513, CCG 14515 and CMS 8027).

CMS, or China Marine Surveillance, was originally under China’s Ministry of Land and Resources, but later was integrated into the CCG.

Among them, CCG 2202 crossed into Kinmen’s restricted waters a little after 2:00 a.m. while sailing from the southeast towards the southwest.

Marine Traffic uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is 8 hours behind Taiwan time and 4 hours ahead of Washington time.

CCG 2202 entered restricted waters around Kinmen on the morning of Feb. 25. In this and all screenshots below, the purple line marks the shared restricted and prohibited waters along the west and north of Kinmen. Where the zones split along the island’s south and east sides, the blue line marks restricted waters and the red line prohibited waters. (Screenshot/ Marine Traffic)

At around the same time, CCG 2203 briefly crossed into and made a single pass within the restricted waters alongside the south of Kinmen as the graphic below shows.

CCG 2203 approached restricted waters around Kinmen from the south at the same time CCG 2202 was sailing from the north on Feb. 25. (Screenshot/Marine Traffic)

Both ships approached but never crossed into Kinmen’s prohibited waters, coming within less than 4 nautical miles of Kinmen at one point before veering off into open water at around 4:00 a.m. and continuing their patrols throughout the rest of the day at a distance.

Four of the five other Chinese vessels on patrol near Kinmen on Feb. 25 only entered the island’s restricted waters briefly.

CMS 8027, however, entered Kinmen’s prohibited waters a little before 1:00 a.m. on Feb. 25, the sole Chinese vessel that AFCL observed to have done so that day.

Amongst five other official ships patrolling around Kinmen on Feb. 25, one of them - CMS 8027, marked in indigo above - crossed into Kinmen’s prohibited waters. (Screenshot/Marine Traffic)

Huang Chung-ting, an associate research fellow at the Taiwanese military think tank Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said while the intrusion of CMS patrol ships into Kinmen’s prohibited waters is certainly a provocation towards Taiwan, it is not as strong a challenge as sending former navy vessels such as CCG 2202 and CCG 2203 into these waters.

Compared to regular law enforcement vessels such as CCG 2202 and 2203, the surveillance ships [such as a CMS] have the nature of general administrative purpose only, he explained.

In contrast, the CCG is still now a branch of China’s armed forces directed by the country’s Central Military Commission, which has led U.S. officials to previously state that they may treat the CCG as a part of the Chinese Navy, Huang added.

Huang said activities of CCG ships are likely to be concentrated in Kinmen’s south because the separate borders of the restricted and prohibited waters in that area allow China to perform more calculated escalatory naval movements compared to the northwest and west of the island, where the overlapping restricted and prohibited water limit such provocations.

After Feb. 25

While China did launch “regular” patrols in the waters near Kinmen following Feb. 25, six of the vessels checked in this article (2202, 2203, 14608, 14609, 14513, and 14515) only crossed slightly over into Kinmen’s restricted waters or sailed a short distance away from it.

Marine Traffic data show that CCG 2202 sailed into Kinmen’s restricted waters again on Feb. 27. In the following week, the ship repeated a similar daily patrol straddling Kinmen’s restricted waters while gradually shifting the main course of its daily routes farther and farther towards the open sea southeast of the island.

CCG 2202 crossed through Kinmen’s restricted waters several times between Feb. 26 to March 6. The straight line running through the middle of Kinmen indicates that the AIS signal disappeared for a time between 8:54 a.m. and 10:02 p.m. on Feb. 29. (Screenshot/Marine Traffic)

CCG 2203’s course mirrored CCG 2202 during the same timeframe, entering Kinmen’s restricted waters on Feb. 27 while gradually shifting the main course of its daily patrols further away from Kinmen to the southeast.

CCG 2203 also sailed through Kinmen’s restricted waters several times from Feb. 26 to March 6. (Screenshot/Marine Traffic)

While CMS 8027 sailed through Kinmen’s prohibited waters again on both Feb. 26 and 27, there was overall very little change in the trajectory of CCG vessels on duty near Kinmen between Feb. 25 and March 7.

CMS 8027 sailed through Kinmen’s prohibited waters between Feb. 26 to March 6. (Screenshot/ Marine Traffic)

‘Talk tough and tread carefully’

Huang from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research told AFCL that he does not believe that the situation represents a “reversal” of the long-term status quo surrounding Kinmen, pointing to China’s decision to avoid sending multiple CCG vessels deep into Kinmen’s prohibited waters as evidence.

Huang pointed out that the specific language used in official CCG statements regarding maritime disputes with the Philippines in the South China Sea and with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands highlights a nuanced difference in China’s strategy towards Kinmen.

For instance, the CCG emphasizes that it is conducting patrols within “the range of China’s jurisdictional waters” in the South China Sea, but its statement concerning Kinmen only mentions the “waters around the island,” a sign of the Chinese government’s often used “talk tough and tread carefully” approach towards Taiwan, according to Huang.

The CCG statement about Kinmen only declares that the dispute is occurring in the “waters around Kinmen and Xiamen,” while a statement from the organization concerning a dispute with the Philippines in the South China Sea specifically calls the disputed area “China’s Nansha Islands.” (Screenshot/ CCG Official Weibo)

The variance in terminology and tone suggests that China adopts distinct diplomatic and tactical approaches in its maritime interactions with different neighbors, reflecting tailored strategies based on the unique geopolitical contexts of each dispute.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alan Lu for Asia Fact Check Lab.

US Coast Guard expands its Pacific reach with Harriet Lane deployment

By Stephen Wright and Agnes Herbert for BenarNews — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 03:20:30 +0000

U.S. diplomacy in the South Pacific is getting a boost from the regional deployment of the Coast Guard cutter Harriet Lane, which has started a years-long involvement in fisheries and anti-narcotics enforcement in conjunction with Pacific island countries.

The home port of Harriet Lane, one of a class of 13 U.S. Coast Guard vessels that can carry out so-called medium range operations lasting up to three months, changed to Pearl Harbor from Portsmouth, Virginia in December as part of recent U.S. government commitments to deepen relations with Pacific island countries.

The 270 foot cutter’s ongoing inaugural patrol in the South Pacific that began in January has so far taken it to American Samoa, Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Commander Nicole Tesoniero said to date the patrol has carried out 28 vessel boardings under shiprider agreements with Pacific island countries – already equal to more than a third of the boardings carried out in a year by the six fast-response Coast Guard cutters based in Hawaii and Guam.

“What we’re looking at with Harriet Lane, is starting to get some of those regions that have been more difficult for the Coast Guard to reach,” she told BenarNews in an interview. “And this first patrol has been a great example of that.”

Harriet Lane’s deployment to the Pacific was one of the commitments from last year’s summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of Pacific island countries. The U.S. has sought greater involvement in the Pacific in response to archrival China’s inroads with island nations, such as its secretive security cooperation agreement with the Solomon Islands, signed in 2022.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane and a fishing vessel are seen in Vanuatu’s exclusive economic zone in the South Pacific Ocean on Feb. 26, 2024. (Charly Tautfes/U.S. Coast Guard)

Many Pacific island countries rely on help from Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. to police their vast exclusive economic zones, which extend 200 nautical miles from land, to deter illegal fishing and ensure licensed fishing fleets are following the rules.

The island countries are also part of a drug-trafficking highway for international crime gangs that supply narcotics from Asia and South America to markets in New Zealand and Australia.

Bianca Simeon, an inspector in the maritime wing of Vanuatu’s police force, said Harriet Lane’s visit to Vanuatu last month was significant and beneficial.

The last time the country had patrolled its fisheries was in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and problems with its single patrol boat. The RVS Takuare, donated by Australia in mid-2021, is now in Australia for repairs to a reported engine defect.

Vanuatu officials who went on patrol with Harriet Lane found violations in half of the dozen foreign fishing vessels they boarded, including fish catches in their coolers that were not recorded in their logs, lack of proper records for crew transfers between ships and captains fishing under licenses not issued to them.

“Based on our experience during the patrol with Harriet Lane, I believe there has been significant illegal fishing activity in our waters,” Simeon told BenarNews.

“The patrol with Harriet was only for six days and this is a short time but we managed to find six vessels who were breaking our law,” she said. “I can definitely say there are fishing boats out there who are doing the same but get away with it."

Vanuatu expects at least one more patrol with Harriet Lane this year and would likely conduct a joint patrol if the RVS Takuare becomes available, Simeon said.

Shipriders from Samoa’s police force and its Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries prepare to board a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane small boat in Samoan waters on Feb. 5, 2024. (Charly Tautfest//U.S. Coast Guard)

The U.S. has shiprider agreements with 12 Pacific island countries that mean law enforcement officers from those nations can board U.S. vessels and deputize them to assist in enforcing regulations in their waters.

The agreements are not explicitly aimed at China. However, U.S. diplomats and defense officials have described them as a form of military diplomacy known as theater security cooperation that can foster political relations in the region, enhance security and counter detrimental outside influences.

Many of the fishing vessels boarded in the Pacific with Harriet Lane’s assistance are flagged to China, which reflects it has the world’s largest commercial fishing fleet numbering more than than half a million vessels.

Tesoniero said enhanced shiprider agreements that allow U.S. vessels to police another country’s exclusive economic zone without an official from the country on board could increase the effectiveness of Harriet Lane’s South Pacific patrols.

The U.S. Coast Guard signed an enhanced shiprider agreement with Palau last year and with the Federated States of Micronesia the previous year. Both those countries in the western Pacific give the U.S. military access to their vast ocean territories in exchange for economic assistance and the right for their citizens to live and work in the U.S.

“I do think there is considerable benefit to the enhanced shiprider agreements and it’s really just because of the ability to start that monitoring and enforcement action immediately upon entering the EEZ ,” Tesoniero said. “I think it increases the scope of what you can accomplish.”

Harriet Lane’s Pearl Harbor berth lasts until 2027 under an agreement with the U.S. Navy. Tesoniero said its Pacific patrols also afford an opportunity to understand what its future home port options could be.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stephen Wright and Agnes Herbert for BenarNews.

New Pakistan Gov’t Marks Return of "Bourgeois Old Guard" as Jailed Imran Khan Looms Large

Democracy Now! — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 15:49:17 +0000

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

New Pakistan Gov’t Marks Return of “Bourgeois Old Guard” as Jailed Imran Khan Looms Large

Democracy Now! — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 13:48:32 +0000

In Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in Monday as prime minister for a second time, days after newly elected members of Parliament were seated amid protests by lawmakers from the party of ousted and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sharif will lead a coalition government after none of the major parties won a majority of parliamentary seats in February’s election, when Khan supporters accused the military of election tampering. Regardless of actual policy, Khan’s enduring popularity as an anti-establishment figure comes from “a young, disaffected population, a set of regimes that historically does not deliver, and underlying structural crises that just get worse,” says Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, associate professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. “That’s why I think you have this groundswell of opinion which is both anti-domestic elite and also anti-foreign elite.”

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

Did a Taiwan coast guard captain cause the Kinmen incident?

By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 20:44:30 +0000

A claim emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that a Taiwanese coast guard captain caused two Chinese fishermen to die near Kinmen island – controlled by Taiwan but just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from mainland China – because he had interests in two fishing businesses.

But alleged details about the post’s caption are false, and the images shared by social media users to back their claim are apparently taken from an unrelated 2023 document.

The claim was shared on Facebook on Feb. 17.

“What caused this incident [near Kinmen] is a captain of the Taiwanese coast guard’s 9th maritime patrol unit named Wu Meng-chieh … [It’s] due to business interests relating to two fishery companies he owns,” reads the post, which included three images of what appeared to be an official document from Taiwan.

In the Feb. 14 incident, four Chinese fishermen from Fujian province in a speedboat fell into the ocean after being chased by Taiwanese coast guard ships after crossing into restricted waters around Kinmen island.

All four were recovered from the water and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Two returned to stable condition, but two others who had lost consciousness after falling into the sea were later pronounced dead.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office condemned the coast guard’s handling of the incident.

But Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council stated that the relevant personnel “performed their duties in accordance with the law without any misconduct.”

A Facebook user claimed that a Taiwanese coast guard official caused the deaths of two Chinese fishermen near Kinmen. (Screenshot/Facebook)

The claim and images in question – that the coast guard captain caused the accident because he owned fishing businesses – were shared by a number of widely followed pro-Beijing influencers on popular social media platforms such as X and Weibo, with some additionally attaching a purported photo of Wu, the captain.

A number of netizens on Weibo and X retweeted the rumor. (Screenshot/Weibo & X)

The document

The partial document included in the social media post made it appear that there was some classified document that linked Wu to the accident. But crucial details like dates and serial numbers were removed or blurred.

Keyword searches on Google found the original document issued in Sept. 2023 – concerning the disposal of an unidentified body – and had no relation to the February incident.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the original document (left) and the document shared by social media users (right).

The header, recipients list and official seal of a message sent to Kinmen County police in September 2023 (left) is identical to the images circulated by Chinese netizens as evidence of a Taiwanese coast guard officer’s role in causing the deaths (right). (Screenshot/Facebook & Taiwan’s Miaoli County Government)

Wu’s identity

Also, Taiwanese coast guard officials told AFCL that the Facebook post was false, noting that while there was an official surnamed Wu, he served on the shore patrol team, and was not a maritime patrol captain.

Also, a review of Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs’ public company register revealed that the two fishery companies allegedly prompting Wu to target Chinese fishermen were approved for dissolution in Dec. 2017 and Nov. 2019, respectively.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.

Chinese coast guard causes ‘panic’ with Taiwan cruise ship boarding | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 08:44:59 +0000

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

5 Takeaways From ProPublica’s Investigation of Coast Guard Detentions at Sea

by Seth Freed Wessler — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 20:30:00 +0000

by Seth Freed Wessler

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

In late February, a smuggling boat carrying dozens of Haitians bound for the U.S. was intercepted so close to Florida’s shore that those aboard could see the lights of hotels and passing cars. But although they were in U.S. waters, they have few rights compared to people who arrive at land borders. That’s even true of the three young children traveling alone on that boat, a 10-year-old boy and two sisters, 8 and 4.

I spent months reporting on this group of people, the children in particular, and on the hidden world of immigration enforcement at sea, a border where different rules apply. These are five key findings of the investigation, published last week in partnership with The New York Times Magazine.

Coast Guard detentions in the Caribbean and straits of Florida have reached their highest level in nearly three decades.

Since the summer of 2021, the Coast Guard has detained more than 27,000 people aboard its fleet of cutters in the Caribbean and straits of Florida, more than in any similar period in nearly three decades.

“We are in extremis,” a senior Coast Guard official wrote to colleagues in an email, part of a trove of internal records and data that I obtained. Most of the 27,000 are Haitian and Cuban, people who in recent years have faced extraordinary levels of violence and political unrest. But even people fleeing violence, rape, the threat of death — who on land would be likely to pass an initial asylum screening, according to legal experts — are routinely sent back to the countries they’ve fled when they try to arrive by sea.

The U.S. government has a separate system for people detained at sea to ask for protection. But it is nearly impossible to get through. Of the 27,000 people detained since July 2021, the Coast Guard logged 1,900 such claims, according to an internal Coast Guard database I obtained. Only about 60 of them had those claims approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials.

Yet even the people whose “fear” claims are approved are not allowed into the U.S. Instead they can agree to be sent to an immigration detention facility on the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they’re told they should be prepared to wait for two years or more, until another country agrees to take them as refugees. Only 36 of the people with approved claims since July 2021 agreed to be sent to Guantánamo.

Unlike on land, even unaccompanied children traveling by sea are almost always denied protection in the U.S.

Since July of 2021, the Coast Guard has detained about 500 unaccompanied minors, mostly Haitians. Nearly every one of them was sent back.

On land, unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada cannot simply be turned back. But at sea, children are treated much like adults. Of the 500, only about 1% were allowed into the U.S. because officials determined they would likely be persecuted or tortured if sent back to the countries they fled.

The Coast Guard says that its crew members screen children to identify “human-trafficking indicators and protection concerns including fear of return.” A spokesperson told me that “migrants who indicate a fear of return receive further screening” by Homeland Security officials.

Once children are sent back to Haiti, some face uncertain fates.

No U.S. agency would explain what, if any, precautions the U.S. government takes to protect children, beyond an initial screening conducted aboard cutters.

Our reporting centered on the experience of a 10-year-old boy named Tcherry who, after he was delivered to Haiti by the Coast Guard, left the port with a man he’d met only weeks before at a smuggler’s house. No U.S. or Haitian officials spoke with Tcherry’s mother, who is in Canada, before the man was allowed to leave with the boy. The man himself was surprised how easy it had been.

“When we have custodial protection of those children, we want to make sure that the necessary steps are taken,” a Coast Guard spokesperson said, “to ensure that when we repatriate those migrants, they don’t end up in some nefarious actor’s custody or something.”

But one official from an agency involved in processing people delivered by the U.S. Coast Guard to Haiti told me, “Children leave the port, and what happens to them after they leave, no one knows.”

People are harming themselves in the hopes of making successful asylum claims.

As more and more people have taken to the sea, and their desperation has grown, an increasing number of migrants and refugees have harmed themselves in hopes that they will be rushed to hospitals on land, where they believe they can make asylum claims.

People detained on cutters have swallowed jagged metal cotter pins pulled from the rigging and stabbed themselves with smuggled blades, apparently trying to cause such severe injury that they’d be taken to a hospital. In January, a man plunged a five-inch buck-style knife that he’d carried onto a cutter into the side of his torso and slashed it down his rib cage. Crewmembers now start every leg at sea by scouring the decks for anything that people might use to harm themselves. According to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, “medical evacuations do not mean that migrants have a greater chance of remaining in the United States.” But without the ability to claim asylum on cutters, more people are trying anyway.

The rigid immigration restrictions at sea, combined with the nearly 30-year spike in people detained, has created a moral crisis for Coast Guard members, too.

Coast Guard crew members described to me their distress at having to reject desperate person after desperate person. Several people I talked to said that the worst part of the job was turning away the children who were traveling alone. “The hardest ones for me are the unaccompanied minors,” one crew member told me. “They’re put on this boat to try to come to America, and they have no one.”

Crew members were seeing so much suffering, including encountering the bodies of people whose boats had capsized in the sea, that it was not uncommon for them to find each other sobbing. Some were struggling with what one former crew member called a “moral dilemma” because they had begun to understand that the job required them to inflict suffering on others. “We hear their stories, people who say they’d rather we shoot them right here than send them back to what they’re running from,” another Coast Guard member told me. “And then we send them all back.”

The Coast Guard leadership was getting worried: “I don’t see how the current level of operations is sustainable,” the commander of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Miami wrote to colleagues, “without the breaking of several of our people.”

Jason Kao contributed data reporting.

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

N Korea restores armed guard posts along border with the South

By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 04:35:22 +0000

North Korea is reestablishing its Guard Posts (GPs) equipped with weapons along its border with South Korea – a move seen as part of Pyongyang’s ongoing pressure campaign against Seoul and potentially sets the stage for future provocative activities at the frontline between the two states.

The South Korean military exposed images of what appears to be the North’s new Observation Posts (OPs) across the 11 GPs in the inter-Korean border Monday. A military official said the authorities also spotted North Korean troops, trenches as well as weapons, such as recoilless rifles.

“From the 24th [of November], activities such as the introduction of heavy weapons into this area, and day and night guard duties have been observed,” the official told reporters, adding that the observations were made through photos and night-vision thermal imaging taken from the frontline area using military surveillance equipment.

North Korea reinitiated its pressure campaign against the South last week when it declared an immediate and complete withdrawal of the military agreement designed to reduce hostilities between the two nations. It also pledged to deploy its latest weaponry along the borderline.

Pyongyang’s decision came just a day after South Korea suspended the landmark 2018 inter-Korean military agreement as a countermeasure to Pyongyang’s illegal satellite launch that violated a United Nations Security Council resolution. Rocket technology can be used for both launching satellites and missiles. For that reason, the U.N. bans North Korea from launching a ballistic rocket, even if it claims to be a satellite launch.

Cheon Seong-whun, a former security strategy secretary for South Korea’s presidential office, sees escalated tensions in the Korean peninsula to be inevitable in the short term.

“North Korea’s actions appear to be a demonstration of their intentions, as they declared last week. They can fire artillery in the West Sea [Yellow Sea] or further restore additional GPs. This could temporarily escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” Cheon said.

The two Koreas had agreed in 2018 to halt what each defined as hostile actions toward the other near the border. Under the agreement, both North and South Koreas dismantled their GPs on their respective sides as a part of efforts to reduce military tensions and build trust.

According to South Korea’s defense ministry, however, the North has violated the agreement a total of 17 times up until last year since the agreement was signed. Critics in the South, thus, have long argued that the deal has already become ineffective, only serving to restrict Seoul’s operational and surveillance capabilities.

The blame game

Earlier on Monday, North Korea blamed the United States and South Korea for forcing it to scrap the inter-Korean military agreement.

“After the adoption of the Panmunjom Declaration on April 27, 2018, and the Pyongyang Joint Declaration in September, along with its annex, the North-South military agreement, the puppet clique has slavishly followed the United States, wantonly violating these agreements,” stated North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun on Monday, referring to South Korea as “puppet clique”.

“Over the past four years alone, various invasive war drills have been conducted over 600 times,” said the newspaper, referring to the joint drills between the U.S. and South Korea, as well as those including Japan. “Moreover, since the emergence of the Yoon Suk Yeol traitorous clique, the foremost puppet serving foreign nuclear war forces, the war exercises have become even more dangerously frenzied, escalating to a real-world level of threat.”

The report, however, did not mention North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s remarks to South Korean special envoy Chung Eui-yong in 2018, in which Kim stated that he “understands” Seoul’s position in conducting joint military exercises with the U.S.

North Korea has repeatedly expressed its unease with the intensifying trilateral collaboration among the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in the region. Pyongyang perceives this alliance as a threat to its regime’s security, primarily because it cannot match the advanced military capabilities of these allies.

“Recently, the puppet traitorous clique held what they called a military authority meeting with its superiors, the Americans and the Japanese, where they conspired about ‘security cooperation’ between the three parties,” the Rodong Sinmun said, calling the South Korea a “war minion” of the U.S. and Japan.

The U.S., South Korea, and Japan are currently conducting maritime exercises near the South Korean island of Jeju since Sunday, aimed at strengthening close coordination and operational capabilities, according to the South’s defense ministry.

Cheon noted the challenging situation faced by the South Korean government in dealing with the North’s provocations. Escalating tensions, he emphasized, would not be beneficial for South Korea and pointed out the complexity of Seoul’s response.

“When South Korea suspended the September 19 military agreement, it only suspended the clause related to reconnaissance,” said Cheon.

“This means that each time North Korea engages in provocative actions, South Korea is confronted with the difficult choice of whether to suspend additional parts of the agreement or the entire agreement,” Cheon added, stressing the need for South Korea to carefully formulate its overall military strategy to effectively handle the North Korean challenge.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA.

This Security Guard Enforced a School District’s Mask Mandate. He Ended Up Facing a Criminal Charge.

by Nicole Carr — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 14:10:00 +0000

by Nicole Carr

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Jill Joy pointed her cellphone camera at the security guards gathered near the doors to the middle school auditorium, where the Webster Central School District Board of Education meeting was about to start. Panning the scene for her livestream viewers that cold evening in February 2022, she noted, “They’ve brought in extra security. Say ‘Hi,’ you fucking tools.”

Joy was among a group of parents in suburban Rochester, New York, who’d dubbed themselves ROC for Educational Freedom. Two years earlier, in 2020, they’d created a Facebook group to organize against what they perceived as “drastic” and “deranged” COVID-19 safety measures in suburban Monroe County school districts. Then in the summer of 2021, Joy landed in a local news story when she stood before the Webster school board cupping her hand over her young daughter’s mouth to mimic a mask. “If you saw this, you would see that this is abuse and you would stop it,” she’d declared.

Now, as Joy livestreamed the scene, a handful of parents huddled with her just inside the entrance to the middle school. Dressed in jeans and puffy winter coats, they were trying to decide the best way to break the rule requiring that they wear masks to attend the meeting. “They’re going to try to put us in a classroom and segregate us,” one woman warned.

Ken Mancini, a retired jail officer turned school district security supervisor, was one of the guards captured on Joy’s livestream. It was Mancini’s job to enforce the state’s mask mandate that evening. As Joy and the other parents approached him, one father, Dave Calus, asked, “Where are you keeping those segregated people?”

“In the room down the hallway,” Mancini responded, pointing the unmasked parents in that direction.

Over the squeaking of the group’s shoes on the hallway’s shiny floors, Joy said: “When your children don’t comply, this is their walk of shame to their classroom where they go into false imprisonment.”

Almost as soon as the parents got to the room, they turned around to head back to the meeting, acting on an earlier suggestion to gain entry wearing masks and then take them off. “They’re not going to arrest us all for trespassing, right?” one woman asked.

“Yeah, exactly,” Calus responded.

“Let’s go in and see,” Joy said.

Less than a minute after they walked into the auditorium, Mancini started making rounds, asking people in the group who’d removed their masks to put them back on. One by one they ignored or argued with him. When one woman refused, Mancini picked up her cup and a stack of papers she’d set down on the staircase where she was seated. “That’s it. Time to leave,” he said, putting his hand on the woman’s back and motioning for her to exit.

“Don’t leave, make them call the police,” Joy said as she livestreamed Mancini escorting the woman out.

Then, as a first grader was preparing to give a presentation about Lunar New Year traditions in Chinese culture, Mancini tapped Calus on the shoulder.

“I realized it was a setup after the evening ended,” Mancini later recalled to ProPublica. “But at some point you have to do your job. Because if you ignore one, then you have to ignore them all.”

What happened next, depending on whom you ask, was a security guard either enforcing district rules or going too far. Calus was never charged with trespassing that night, but Mancini did wind up facing a criminal charge.

Mancini is among 59 people identified by ProPublica who were arrested or charged as a result of turmoil at school board meetings across the country from May 2021 to November 2022. While most of those people were parents or protestors who disrupted the meetings by railing against mask mandates, the teaching of “divisive” racial concepts and the availability of books with LGBTQ+ themes in school libraries, Mancini’s incident was different. It’s the only case ProPublica could find in which a member of a school district’s security team was charged for ejecting a parent from a school board meeting.

The Monroe County district attorney’s office did not answer ProPublica’s questions. Joy declined to be interviewed.

Calus and Mancini had crossed paths before. During a May 2021 school board budget hearing, Calus and other parents had yelled from the audience about there not being a public comment period — and Calus said that, as a result, Mancini and a police officer asked him to leave. He also said he did not believe Mancini had the authority to remove him and only complied because a police officer was involved.

Calus told ProPublica that when he showed up at the February 2022 meeting, there wasn’t a preexisting agreement with the other parents to cause a scene or get someone in trouble. “We didn’t plan to meet together,” he said. “We didn’t conspire together.”

Tammy Gurowski, who was president of the Webster school board at the time of the February 2022 incident, recalled that in the months before the incident, board members paid attention to the grievances parents expressed on social media. “It wasn’t the majority, but it was a very angry, very frustrated minority,” she said.

She also said the board attempted to recognize the parents’ concerns and that board members were aware of the growing unrest at nearby school board meetings.

“I think for us as a board at that time, we just saw that it’s just fracturing the whole premise of what public education was designed to do — and that is, educate every child without all those issues at play.”

The Webster middle school where the Webster Central School District Board of Education had the February 2022 meeting (Matt Burkhartt for ProPublica)

Webster, a predominantly white, middle-class town of roughly 45,000 people, is among dozens of small towns in the U-shaped band of suburbs that surround Rochester. In that swath of Monroe County, small groups of organized parents have accused multiple school boards of indoctrination and creating unsafe conditions.

At a June 2021 meeting in nearby Penfield, a mother bemoaned the district’s “scary” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, suggested that the board was pushing a transgender agenda and told members to understand that the students “are God’s children.” A short time later, a father in the audience yelled that one of the board members should be respectful of parents. The board member yelled back, “You’re not going to stand up here and do anything to me, asshole!” — prompting the father to jump on the stage and confront the school board member face-to-face.

In the months before the incident in Webster, four parents were arrested for disrupting other meetings in neighboring school districts. Charges against all four were dismissed.

In October 2021, in a suburb on the other side of Rochester, members of the Hilton Central School District board adjourned a meeting after asking the sheriff’s office to assist with disruptive parents. One parent who refused to mask was charged with trespassing. Two others faced charges for refusing to leave the property. Parents would go on to lead an effort to ban a book with LGBTQ+ themes from the district. The superintendent would later say the book was cited in a bomb threat made against the district. Two similar anti-LGBTQ bomb threats followed. Agencies, including the FBI, concluded the threats were a hoax, sent anonymously from an overseas server.

In an incident similar to the one in Webster, a parent in nearby Fairport named Shannon Bones livestreamed her arrest at a school board meeting during which she’d kept her mask lowered. Bones later appeared on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” where she alleged she had been singled out for arrest. She went on to claim that this particular meeting “was very different than previous meetings” because the board had “worked with” a group called Black in the Burbs and that the group had “brought in activists.”

Immediately after that August 2021 meeting, there was a shouting match between two groups of parents in the parking lot. One group included Bones, who’d been released by police at the scene, and an opposing group coalesced around Tiffany Porter, the founder of Black in the Burbs. Porter said she had posted a photo of a young man on social media after, she alleged, he threatened her as a result of her activism, and the man’s mother was with Bones in the parking lot. Bones denies having anything to do with the confrontation.

“You made it personal, bitch! You made it personal!” the mother yelled in a video recorded by one of Porter’s friends.

“I don’t know who your son is,” Porter replied.

“Go wear your mask!” another woman shouted after the groups continued their back-and-forth yelling.

“Go fuck yourself,” Porter snapped back.

A prosecutor dropped trespassing charges against Bones within three weeks. But Bones continued to use the case as a rallying cry against government overreach, filing a wrongful arrest lawsuit seeking $17 million in damages. The case is ongoing.

Bones told ProPublica that her arrest was “violent aggression” against parents attempting to exercise their rights: “I think we are somewhat in the middle of the righteous battle over who is going to control the education and upbringing of children.”

Porter, a Black, queer woman who’d responded to George Floyd’s murder by launching Black in the Burbs and organizing protests during the summer of 2020, says she was not plotting against Bones or working with the board. But she said she did expect trouble at meetings because online vitriol was flaring. “We were in and are still in a civil war when it comes to public education,” she said.

At the February 2022 meeting in Webster, after Mancini tapped him on the shoulder, Calus didn’t budge. Mancini then gripped the back of the rolling chair Calus was sitting on and tried to wheel it toward the exit. When Calus lunged forward, Mancini grabbed the back of his jacket.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Joy screamed as she kept livestreaming. “That’s assault!”

Calus’ coat slid off and he sat back in his chair. Mancini stepped in front of him, pointing to the door. Another security guard grabbed Calus as Mancini shoved the chair toward the exit. Three guards pushed Calus out of the auditorium.

The meeting continued as Joy and others yelled about Mancini’s actions. “The cops should have arrested this fucking guy instead of them throwing Dave out,” she said.

Watch video ➜

An attorney named Chad Hummel was at home watching Joy’s livestream but had stepped away before the incident with Mancini. “In the meantime, my phone literally starts buzzing off the counter,” he later recalled on a friend’s podcast. “I’m getting text after text after text after text. I read my text messages, and somebody tells me that Dave Calus just got quote-unquote manhandled and dragged out of the place. So I immediately texted Dave.”

Calus said he met Hummel in 2021 when the attorney offered his office as a meeting place for parents to give depositions in a lawsuit they had filed against 15 local school districts over COVID-19 protocols, hoping to force schools to reopen for in-person instruction. Calus was one of nearly 30 plaintiffs in the suit, which was dismissed six months later.

That year, Hummel started hosting a show on the We The People Podcast Network, a local platform of political programs that aims to “bring the right and the left together” and allow “both sides to present their similarities.” Yet Hummel’s show promised “to break down the hypocrisy of the left and fight for the right.” He would later tell his listeners that the FBI had questioned him about being at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Prior to the incident involving Calus, Hummel had stepped in to represent a local woman who was arrested for confronting a school district employee over the masking policy. In that case, the woman faced charges for allegedly assaulting a school bus monitor who tried to make her son wear a mask. (Police said the woman also encouraged her child to punch the bus monitor; there’s no record of the outcome of the case.) Months before that, Hummel himself had been arrested in his own kid’s school district. He had refused to mask at his son’s baseball game and then refused to leave when security tried to escort him out for breaching district policy. He was charged with third-degree criminal trespass and was preparing for his own trial when Calus’ incident landed on his radar.

Hummel, who was later acquitted, did not respond to ProPublica’s questions.

Calus said that the night of the incident, Hummel recommended he call the Webster Police Department to press charges against Mancini and said that an officer came to his home to take a statement. The Webster Police Department did not respond to ProPublica’s questions.

Calus also said he’d wanted the media to cover the incident. He recalled that, though he’s a registered Democrat, “nobody on the left wanted to pick it up.” So he ended up on conservative programs. “I was willing to give interviews to anybody who was willing.”

The day after the incident, with Hummel at his side, Calus was a guest on a We The People Podcast Network show hosted by Hummel’s friend. Two days later, Calus and Hummel were featured guests on Greg Kelly’s show on NewsMax and the “Hannity” show on Fox News.

“There’s been political overreach and control over our kids for so long,” Calus told Sean Hannity. “And we haven’t been asking for a ban on masks. All we want is a choice. We deserve the right to choose whether our kids go to school with a mask or not.”

A week later, Hummel said he had an important announcement to make about the case on a “bonus” episode of his podcast: “My Information at this point is that Mr. Mancini was in fact charged today in Webster town court.” The Monroe County district attorney’s office had charged Mancini with second-degree harassment.

At around the time of Calus’ media appearances, Mancini and his family began receiving alarming messages on Facebook.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if your scumbag ass catches a beating,” one message read. “You better be careful who you put your hands on.”

“Are you one of the rent-a-dick brown shirt Nazis in the video of the school board meeting, assaulting a peaceful taxpaying father?” said another message.

Mancini said he had to shut down his Facebook page because the messages kept coming. “They posted on different accounts that they were going to come by my house and do a citizen’s arrest,” he said. “I would get anonymous phone calls about different stuff. Got to the point I wasn’t even answering my phone anymore unless I knew the person that was calling me.”

Meanwhile, many people who’d watched Joy’s livestream, which racked up 185,000 views, sympathized with Calus. In one of the 1,600 comments, one man compared him to Rosa Parks “who refused to give up her seat on a bus” and to anti-segregation student protestors who “quietly sat in at lunch counters while enduring all kinds of physical and verbal abuse.”

In September 2022, Mancini arrived for his trial in Judge David Corretore’s courtroom. He was represented by the high-profile defense attorney Joe Damelio, a childhood friend who had previously defended several politicians charged with federal crimes.

The trial lasted two and a half hours. The judge found Mancini not guilty of harassing Calus.

Details of the trial and the case are scarce. Damelio did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Monroe County district attorney’s office stated that court and police documents had been sealed, consistent with New York law, because Mancini was acquitted. After an initial interview with ProPublica, Mancini declined further comment, referring interview requests to his employer, the Webster Central School District. The district did not respond to repeated requests for an interview or to written questions.

Calus said he was disappointed by the outcome of the case. “It’s not like I wanted Ken to go to jail,” he said. “But I would have thought the judge would have said, ‘Yeah, you know what, Dave, you didn’t deserve that. Your rights were violated. We’re gonna give Ken a slap on the hand.’ But realistically, that’s not what happened.”

Calus never publicly acknowledged the acquittal, which received no media coverage.

“My ex-wife tells me every once in a while, ‘I ran into so-and-so and they still think that you’re a loser for what you did in 2022.’ And I just didn’t need that shadow following me everywhere, constantly,” Calus said of his silence after the case.

But Calus briefly returned to the public eye. This year, he ran for a seat on the Webster Central School District board. He lost his bid in May.

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

Philippine Coast Guard removes ‘floating barrier’ at disputed reef

BenarNews staff — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:08:21 +0000

Manila removed a floating barrier Beijing had installed last week at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea to prevent Filipinos from fishing in the area, the Philippine Coast Guard said on Monday.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman, said the “special operation” to remove the floating barrier that obstructed the entrance to Scarborough Shoal was carried out under the instruction of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“The barrier posed a hazard to navigation, a clear violation of international law,” said Tarriela in a statement posted on social media platform X. The West Philippine Sea is Manila’s name for parts of the South China Sea within its jurisdiction.

“It also hinders the conduct of fishing and livelihood activities of Filipino fisherfolk in BDM, which is an integral part of the Philippine national territory,” he said. BDN refers Bajo de Masinloc, the Philippine name for the Scarborough Shoal.

Tarriela also said the Philippine Coast Guard’s removal of the barrier “aligns with international law and the Philippines’ sovereignty over the shoal.”

A United Nations arbitration tribunal in 2016 dismissed China’s sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing has refused to recognize the ruling.

On Sunday, Philippine officials had accused the China Coast Guard of planting the barrier to block Filipinos from their livelihood activities in the shoal’s rich fishing grounds.

The Philippine Coast Guard had said the barrier was 300 meters (328 yards) long. Photographs posted on X showed a series of what appeared to be white buoys linked to each other by a rope.

Videos posted Monday, which the coast guard said were of the removal operation, showed a man underwater cutting a rope attached to the buoys, and what appeared to be an anchor being pulled out of the water.

China counters

For its part, China on Monday said its coast guard “did what was necessary” to drive away a Philippine ship from the Scarborough Shoal area that “has always been China’s territory.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the China Coast Guard had acted in a restrained and professional manner during the Sept. 22 incident, but did not mention the floating barrier.

Huangyan Dao has always been China’s territory. China has indisputable sovereignty over the island and its adjacent waters and sovereign rights and jurisdiction over relevant waters,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a news conference. Huangyan Dao is China’s name for the Scarborough Shoal.

“On Sept. 22, a vessel of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of the Philippines, without China’s permission, intruded into the adjacent waters of Huangyan Dao and attempted to enter its lagoon. China Coast Guard did what was necessary to block and drive away the Philippine vessel,” Wang said.

China took control of the Scarborough Shoal area in 2012 after a standoff between Manila and Beijing. In late 2016, Chinese ships allowed Filipino fishing boats into the area when then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pivoted to Beijing.

Fishermen unload their catch from the South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ jurisdiction, some of it from the vicinity of Scarborough Shoal, in the village of Cato in Infanta town, Pangasinan province, north of Manila, April 21, 2022. Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews

Meanwhile, Philippine officials said they were preparing to file a diplomatic protest against China over the incident.

Maria Teresita Daza, Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, said the Philippine government will take appropriate measures to protect the country’s sovereignty.

When BenarNews asked if these measures would include a diplomatic protest, Daza answered in the affirmative. If it is filed, this would be the 45th diplomatic protest lodged by Manila against Beijing.

“China’s reported installation of barriers and its negative impact on the livelihood of Filipino fisherfolk or any other activity that infringes upon the Philippines’ sovereignty and jurisdiction in Bajo de Masinloc are violations of international law, particularly UNCLOS and the Arbitral Award,” Daza said.

She was referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016 ruling in favor of the Philippines, while throwing out China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea.

This latest incident with the floating barrier came on the heels of China Coast Guard ships and its maritime militia seen by media harassing Philippine Coast Guard ships accompanying boats on a supply mission to Manila’s military outpost in Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.

In August, Manila said Chinese ships also fired water cannons on vessels accompanying one such mission.

Manila-Beijing tensions have risen even as President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who took office last year after Duterte’s term ended, has been more vocal about protecting Philippine sovereignty.

Marcos appears to have embraced the United States and other democratic allies, and shifted away from six years of his predecessor Duterte’s pivot to China, analysts have said.

The Philippine president has granted the U.S. expanded access to more Philippine military bases, and Washington may be asking for even greater access, the two countries’ military chiefs said earlier this month.

Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Riñoza in Manila contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

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

‘Remain calm’, Fiji’s Pio tells public over firebombing incident in Suva

APR editor — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 00:04:44 +0000

By Meri Radinibaravi in Suva

The Fiji government has warned the public “don’t panic” as news of an alleged firebombing incident at Totogo Police Station in the heart of Suva sent shockwaves around the community.

The incident yesterday also spurred questions about the safety of citizens in the country as such activities were reportedly occurring brazenly, out in the open and during daylight.

Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua also acknowledged that this was an alleged attempt to attack a key security facility and represented a direct threat to Fiji’s security forces and the peace and security of the nation.

READ MORE: Incident at Totogo Police Station an isolated one, remain calm – Tikoduadua

The Totogo Police Station firebombing incident yesterday. Image: Fivivillage News screenshot APR

“The public should remain calm and confident in our commitment to maintaining peace and security,” he said at a media conference.

He also confirmed that the 33-year-old suspect was admitted at Colonial War Memorial Hospital after suffering burns, where he remained under police guard.

The man is expected to be taken back into custody once he has recovered.

Fijivillage News reports that Tikoduadua said the man threw a lit bottle filled with flammable liquid into the charge room, and in his attempt to throw another bottle he was apprehended.

Meri Radinibaravi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

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

‘Remain calm’, Fiji’s Pio tells public over firebombing incident in Suva

APR editor — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 00:04:44 +0000

By Meri Radinibaravi in Suva

The Fiji government has warned the public “don’t panic” as news of an alleged firebombing incident at Totogo Police Station in the heart of Suva sent shockwaves around the community.

The incident yesterday also spurred questions about the safety of citizens in the country as such activities were reportedly occurring brazenly, out in the open and during daylight.

READ MORE: Incident at Totogo Police Station an isolated one, remain calm – Tikoduadua

The Totogo Police Station firebombing incident yesterday. Image: Fivivillage News screenshot APR

“The public should remain calm and confident in our commitment to maintaining peace and security,” he said at a media conference.

He also confirmed that the 33-year-old suspect was admitted at Colonial War Memorial Hospital after suffering burns, where he remained under police guard.

The man is expected to be taken back into custody once he has recovered.

Fijivillage News reports that Tikoduadua said the man threw a lit bottle filled with flammable liquid into the charge room, and in his attempt to throw another bottle he was apprehended.

Meri Radinibaravi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

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

Philippine Coast Guard: China militia destroyed coral in our waters

BenarNews staff — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 21:37:47 +0000

The Philippine Coast Guard on Monday blamed Chinese maritime militia ships for destroying coral reefs in Manila-claimed waters in the South China Sea.

The coast guard’s announcement came after the Philippine military accused the Chinese militia of massive destruction, particularly in the seabed of Rozul Reef and Escoda Shoal, features within the country’s internationally recognized exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Divers had carried out “underwater surveys” of the seabed, said Commodore Jay Tarriela, the coast guard spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, Manila’s name for parts of the South China Sea within its jurisdiction.

“The results of these surveys showed that the marine ecosystem in the subject WPS features appeared lifeless, with minimal to no signs of life,” Tarriela said in a statement.

He said there was“visible discoloration” of the seabed that indicated “deliberate activities” meant to modify the natural topography of the terrain.

“The presence of crushed corals strongly suggests a potential act of dumping, possibly involving the same dead corals that were previously processed and cleaned before being returned to the seabed,” Tarriela said.

Both reefs are near the island of Palawan, the Philippines southwestern island fronting the disputed sea.

Monitoring between Aug. 9 and Sept. 11 showed an “average presence” of about 33 Chinese maritime militia ships near the two features, Tarriela said.

The swarming activities of the Chinese militia fleet and their alleged destructive fishing practices “may have directly caused the degradation and destruction of the marine environment in the WPS features,” he said.

The South China Sea is home to about 177,000 square miles of biodiverse coral reefs, environmentalists said. There are an estimated 571 different species of coral and 3,794 different species of fish in its waters.

By comparison, there are roughly 600 known types of coral and 1,500 different species of fish in the Great Barrier Reef off of the East Coast of Australia.

China, which has the world’s largest fishing fleet, claims most of the South China Sea. Six other Asian governments – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam – have territorial claims or maritime boundaries that overlap with China’s claims.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news outlet. The foreign ministry spokeswoman in Beijing did not discuss the issue on Monday, according to a transcript of her news conference.

On Saturday, Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, the Philippine military’s western command chief, told reporters that coral reefs in Rozul Reef have been thoroughly harvested by Chinese militia ships.

“We noticed coral harvesting in their swarming areas. After they departed, we pinpointed the location and dispatched divers for an underwater survey. They observed that no corals remained – everything was damaged, with debris scattered,” Carlos said.

“There’s nothing left in the area,” he said, adding divers claimed the coral harvest occurred recently, although the Philippine Coast Guard did not release pictures of the undamaged seabed.

He said Philippine authorities had successfully driven away the Chinese militia in early July, but the militia returned the following month because it was nearly impossible to patrol the coastal area regularly.

“We’d like to maintain [patrol] 100%, 365 days a year. But because of the weather, limited resources … our troops have to go back to port to refuel, to take some rest,” he said.

DFA, senators speak out

On Monday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the Philippines consistently “raised the alarm over ecologically harmful activities” in the EEZ.

“We, therefore, call on everyone concerned to act responsibly and cease all activities that can damage our precious marine environment. The well-being of millions of people who depend on the South China Sea for their livelihood is at stake,” it said in a statement.

Two senators, Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada and Francis Tolentino, an ally of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., issued statements speaking out against the damage.

“Preserving the marine environment and coral reefs in Rozul Reef and Escoda Shoal is not only a responsibility but a moral duty that we owe to future generations,” Estrada said.

Tolentino, meanwhile, said he is crafting the Philippine Maritime Zone Law that he envisions would be the country’s legal basis for territorial disputes.

“If we file a claim, damages, it should be in a tribunal recognized by UNCLOS, United Nations,” he said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs uses of oceans and their resources.

A screengrab from an undated video claims to show coral destruction in the seabeds of Rozul Reef and Escoda Shoal in the South China Sea. Credit: Courtesy Philippine Coast Guard

Bobby Roldan, who represents the fishermen’s group Pamalakaya, urged Marcos to order a wider damage assessment of the area.

“There is a need to identify if the swarmed area was subjected to coral harvesting, clam hunting, or any military activities that destroyed its vast coral reefs,” Roldan said.

“We urge the Marcos administration to take this matter urgently by tapping marine scientists and other experts to extensively assess the damage and its possible long-term implications to the local fishery production.

Jeoffrey Maitem, Jojo Riñoza and Gerard Carreon in Manila contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news outlet.

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

State security police guard dissident sculptor in Beijing hospital

By Hwang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 19:58:14 +0000

Prominent Chinese dissident and performance artist Yan Zhengxue is unconscious in the hospital under heavy guard by state security police, Radio Free Asia has learned.

Yan, who headed an outspoken group of dissident artists in Beijing during the student-led pro-democracy movement of 1989, is well-known for his sculptures, in particular one of Cultural Revolution-era activist Lin Zhao.

Yan is currently on a ventilator and state security police have instituted tight security around his hospital room, interrogating fellow pro-democracy activist Ji Feng and forcing him to leave his friend’s bedside on pain of “death without a burial,” a person close to Ji told Radio Free Asia on Monday.

“He was threatened by the Beijing municipal state security police,” the person said.

While the reason for Yan's unconscious state wasn't disclosed, those close to him believe he is approaching the end of his life, but without one of his closest friends and fellow dissidents by his side.

"[Ji] won’t be allowed to visit Yan Zhengxue from now on, and if he dares to speak out again, his mobile phone will be smashed,” the person said, quoting state security police threats to Ji during an interrogation at a Beijing guesthouse.

Police had treated Ji roughly throughout the interrogation, refused to allow him to record proceedings and kicked the door down when he visited the bathroom, they said.

Ji has been taken to his home city of Guizhou in southwestern China, and only Yan’s wife and daughter are allowed to be with him in hospital, the person said.

Beijing-based independent journalist Gao Yu said she had also received news of Ji’s treatment at the hands of state security police. She said Ji had done nothing wrong in wanting to be with his lifelong friend at the end of his life.

Calls to the media center at the Beijing municipal police department were cut off shortly after connection on Monday.

‘He suffered a lot’

Gao also lauded Yan for continuing to comment on political oppression through his artwork, most notably his sculptures of famous dissidents.

"He was arrested more than a dozen times, and sent to prison, specifically one prison sentence and two stints in a labor camp,” she said. “He suffered a lot."

"He was beaten many times, his toes were stamped on and broken, and he was taken to the police station on many occasions,” Gao said. “But he never gave in.”

“He created a great deal of his work in prison,” she said, adding that he was “very influential” among China’s dissident artists, particularly the dissident art community in Beijing.

Ji Feng once published an article saying that Yan was one of the pioneers of what he termed “contemporary free culture” in China.

“Whether inside or outside the high walls [of prison], Yan Zhengxue made art with a prisoner's mentality,” Ji wrote. “He faced the thick walls of autocracy like a soldier, unwilling to retreat even though he knew they were invincible. He was very much a lone hero.”

Brother struck by car

In 2013, Yan's elderly brother was hit by a car in a near-fatal accident relatives feared could be part of a campaign of political persecution against the artist.

The accident took place in Taizhou city in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang hours after Yan got in a heated confrontation with local officials at the municipal government’s complaints bureau.

The families of prominent critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party frequently report discrimination, loss of employment, physical attacks and harassment by law enforcement agencies linked to the dissident's activities.

Children of dissidents sometimes find barriers placed in the way of their education, while whole families have reported being held under house arrest and subjected to detentions and beatings.

In 1993, Yan Zhengxue was sentenced to "re-education through labor" after he lodged a complaint against the Beijing police department, during which he reported being tortured with electric batons.

Following his release in 1996, Yan began rights advocacy work on behalf of disadvantaged groups in China, which led to several bouts of secret detention.

He was handed a three-year jail term in 2007 for "incitement to subvert state power."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hwang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.

Chinese Coast Guard water cannon attack on Vietnamese fishing boat leaves 2 injured

By RFA Vietnamese — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 20:30:38 +0000

Two Vietnamese fishermen were injured when a Chinese Coast Guard vessel fired a water cannon at their boat near the contested Paracel Islands, the latest casualties in China’s aggressive campaign to expand its control in the South China Sea.

Tuesday’s incident, ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Vietnam on Sept. 10, happened as the fishing boat was moving from Woody Island to Observation Bank in the waters surrounding the Paracels, Vietnamese state media reported.

The ship’s owner, Huynh Van Hoanh, 43, suffered a broken right arm while fisherman Huynh Van Tien sustained a head injury during the attack by Coast Guard ship 4201.

The Paracel Islands, known as the Xisha Islands in Chinese and the Hoàng Sa Archipelago in Vietnamese, comprise about 130 small coral islands and reefs.

Claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan, they have been occupied entirely by Beijing since 1974 after the Chinese navy defeated the then-South Vietnamese navy in a brief sea battle. Triton is the closest island in the chain to Vietnam.

Researcher Nguyen The Phuong from the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia, said he expected to see more tensions between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea as the date of Biden’s trip approached.

Regardless of whether Vietnam and the U.S. upgrade their relationship to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” or “strategic partnership,” China will continue its maritime strategy of “rocking the tree to threaten the monkey,” he said.

Marine Traffic data

Meanwhile, the same Chinese Coast Guard vessel and an unspecified Vietnamese boat, Ly Son 62908, have been chasing each other since Aug. 19 in the waters around Triton Island, where China recently built a 600-meter (2,000-foot) military airstrip.

China’s Coast Guard in recent years has ramped up its attacks on Vietnamese fishing boats by ramming them or firing water cannons to assert Beijing’s territorial claims in the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea.

The Coast Guard ship was operating in the middle of the Paracel Islands on the day of the attack, according to the automatic identification system, or AIS, data from maritime analytics provider Marine Traffic. The self-reporting system lets vessels broadcast their identification information, characteristics and destination.

The Vietnamese boat Ly Son 62908 was once only 300 meters from the Chinese coast guard vessel CCG 4201 near Triton Island in the South China Sea, Aug. 25, 2023. Credit: MarineTraffic.com

Raymond Powell of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University and a former U.S. defense official, told Radio Free Asia that the position of the Coast Guard vessel coincided with the location of the attack reported by the fishing boat owner.

Marine Traffic data also indicated that the second Vietnamese ship had been moving around Triton Island. Since Aug. 19, the Coast Guard ship and Vietnam’s Ly Son 62908 have been following each other closely, and at one time were only 300 meters (1,000 feet) apart in distance.

On Aug. 27, the Chinese Coast Guard ship left the Triton Island area, headed northeast and arrived in the middle of the Paracel Islands, where it assaulted the other Vietnamese fishing boat, QNg 90495TS, two days later.

After the attack, the Coast Guard ship returned to the Triton Island area and continued the chasing game with Vietnam’s ship, Ly Son 62908. To date, the two ships are still following each other in the area.

Into the zone

Researcher Hoang Viet pointed out that China has intensified its aggressive actions since a phone conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in March and the visit to Vietnam by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in mid-April.

China had repeatedly sent its survey ship Xiang Yang Hong 10 into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, which extend 200 nautical miles (230 miles) beyond a nation's territorial sea, he said.

Powell told RFA he believed it was a small militia vessel, and that the fishing boat had gone further east than the regular route of Vietnamese Coast Guard or militia ships. He also said although Vietnam claimed sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, it rarely sent security vessels to the middle of this archipelago.

“In fact, I’ve never seen them do that,” he said.

The attack on the fishing boat also followed an Aug. 5 incident in which a Chinese Coast Guard ship shot water cannons at a Philippine boat en route to providing food and supplies to Philippine forces on the Second Thomas Shoal.

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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

War with Iran? U.S. Deploys Marines to Guard Commercial Ships in the Persian Gulf

Democracy Now! — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 15:00:59 +0000

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

Is Biden Risking War with Iran as U.S. Deploys Marines to Guard Commercial Ships in the Persian Gulf?

Democracy Now! — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 12:11:37 +0000

In an escalation of tensions, the Biden administration has deployed thousands of U.S. Marines and sailors to the Middle East in order to deter Iran from seizing oil tankers and other commercial ships near the Strait of Hormuz. The move comes after the Navy said Iran tried to seize two commercial oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last month, after seizing dozens more since 2019. Iran responded by equipping its Navy with drones and missiles. “It’s really baffling to see why we’re taking such immense risks that could bring the U.S. into war for achieving things that are of little value when it comes to peace and stability in the region or U.S. interests in the region,” says Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who says the Biden administration is risking a new war for stronger relations with Saudi Arabia. He argues the Biden administration has made critical mistakes in its relations with Iran by continuing Trump administration-era maximum-pressure sanctions.

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

Chinese fire water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard in disputed sea

By BenarNews Staff — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 15:51:25 +0000

Manila on Sunday protested the China Coast Guard’s use of water cannons against a Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting civilian supply boats delivering goods to a military post in the South China Sea.

The Filipino vessels were on a mission Saturday to deliver food, water, fuel and other supplies to troops stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre when the incident occurred near Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal). The World War II-era naval ship was deliberately run aground in the shoal in 1999 to serve as the country’s military post there.

Manila “strongly condemns the China Coast Guard's (CCG's) dangerous maneuvers and illegal use of water cannons against the PCG vessels escorting the indigenous boats chartered by the Armed Forces of the Philippines yesterday, 05 August 2023,” Commodore Jay Tarriela, the coast guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said in a statement.

Tarriela said the action disregarded the safety of Filipino sailors and violated international law, including a 2016 arbitral award in favor of Manila that nullified China’s claims to the South China Sea.

“The PCG calls on the China Coast Guard to restrain its forces, respect the sovereign rights of the Philippines in its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, refrain from hampering freedom of navigation, and take appropriate actions against the individuals involved in this unlawful incident,” he said.

The Philippines also demanded that Beijing “cease all illegal activities within the maritime zones of the Philippines,” Tarriela said.

Armed forces spokesman Col. Medel Aguilar said that because of the Chinese harassment, the second Filipino supply supply boat was unable to unload its supplies and could not complete the mission.

“We call on the China Coast Guard and the Central Military Commission to act with prudence and be responsible in their actions to prevent miscalculations and accidents that will endanger peoples' lives,” Aguilar added.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila has not responded to reporters’ requests for comment. But Chinese media reports quoted the Chinese Coast Guard as confirming the incident and saying the two Filipino supply ships were carrying “illegal building materials.

“CCG carried out necessary management and control in accordance with law and blocked the Philippine ships carrying illegal building materials. China urges the Philippine side to stop its encroachment in the sea area immediately,” Global Times quoted CCG spokesperson Gan Yu as saying.

The U.S. Department of State said that Chinese ships clearly interfered with the Philippines’ “lawful exercise of high seas freedom of navigation.” It noted that the action was the latest in a string of “repeated threats” to the status quo in the South China Sea.

“The United States calls upon the PRC (China) to abide by the arbitral ruling as well as to respect freedom of navigation – a right to which all states are entitled,” the department said in a statement late Saturday.

“The United States reaffirms an armed attack on Philippine public vessels, aircraft and armed forces – including those of its Coast Guard in the South China Sea – would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty,” it said.

China’s action came after lawmakers last week unanimously adopted a resolution condemning China’s continued harassment of Filipino fishermen and its persistent incursions in the contested waters.

The resolution, which expresses the sentiment of the upper chamber but is non-binding, also urged the Philippine government “to take appropriate action in asserting and securing” the country’s sovereign rights, and “to call on China to stop its illegal activities.”

“This bipartisan effort tells the Filipino people that when it comes to matters of national sovereignty, we will never be bullied into submission,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros, one of the senators who filed the resolution.

On Sunday, Hontiveros called on the international community to condemn the latest incident. She also said that it may be high time for the Philippines, as well as other claimant countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, to work together on joint patrols against China. Indonesia has a separate dispute with China, while Taiwan is also a party to the South China Sea wrangling.

Just weeks earlier, the Philippine Coast Guard accused its Chinese counterpart of dangerous maneuvers that could have caused a collision during a resupply mission also on Ayungin Shoal.

In that incident, two China Coast Guard vessels intercepted Philippine patrol boats and “exhibited aggressive tactics” and at one point, the Chinese vessel came to just 50 yards of a Philippine vessel.

On April 21, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy vessel with the bow number 549 crossed paths with Philippine vessels near Pag-asa Island, while in February another Chinese Coast Guard ship directed a military-grade laser light twice at a Filipino ship, causing temporary blindness to the crew at the bridge.

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

Israel’s National Guard: A Tool for Palestinian Erasure

Ahmad Omar — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 22:50:00 +0000

Overview

In March 2023, after months of protests over Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul, Israel gave far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir the go-ahead to establish a national guard. The force, to be composed of an initial 1,800 officers and with an operating budget of one billion NIS ($273 million), will primarily assist Israeli police during “security” emergencies. Approval of the national guard has stirred wide-ranging opposition, from a former Israeli police chief to Palestinian human rights organizations.

Unlike other Israeli forces, the national guard is designed primarily to target Palestinian citizens of Israel. This policy memo examines the emergence of the national guard in order to understand its implications for Palestinian citizens of Israel. It proposes recommendations to relevant stakeholders for how to challenge the new force and protect Palestinians.

Why a National Guard?

The call to establish a national guard has its roots in the Palestinian Unity Intifada. Prompted by Israel’s assault on Palestinian worshippers in the al-Aqsa mosque and its subsequent bombardment of Gaza in May 2021, thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel protested in cities across the 1948 territories. The protests led to outbreaks of violence and targeted attacks against Palestinians, especially in cities with larger Palestinian presences. For Israel, the widespread and ongoing nature of the uprising required a response beyond the capacity of its police.

Consisting of thousands of police officers and volunteer civilian personnel, the national guard will be tasked with sustaining Ben-Gvir’s long-standing commitment to Palestinian subjugation and erasure.
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To quell future Palestinian mobilization and resistance without depleting existing resources, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced the establishment of the Israel National Guard in June 2022. However, due to government instability and budgetary constraints, the creation of the national guard was stalled until early 2023. In April, the new Israeli government approved the national guard as part of a compromise with Ben-Gvir in exchange for his support to suspend the planned judicial overhaul.

Implications for Palestinian Citizens of Israel

While Bennett’s initial proposal envisioned the national guard as part of Israel’s border police, the approved iteration will fall directly under the supervision of Ben-Gvir’s office. Consisting of thousands of police officers and volunteer civilian personnel, the national guard will be tasked with sustaining Ben-Gvir’s long-standing commitment to Palestinian subjugation and erasure.

Ben-Gvir’s anti-Palestinian positions are well documented. The national security minister was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement and support for the Kahanist terror group, Kach, which advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Since joining the government in 2022, Ben-Gvir has championed motions to impose the death penalty on Palestinians, significantly increase gun permits for Jewish Israelis, grant immunity to Israeli soldiers and police officers from trials and investigations, and broaden the so-called Dromi Law, which legalizes violent “self-defense” of property.

While the jurisdiction of the national guard has yet to be officially defined, it is clear that the force’s primary focus will be on targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel. As national security minister, Ben-Gvir’s portfolio includes the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee – areas he has referred to as a security issue and as being in states of “complete anarchy” because of their large Palestinian populations. During his election campaign in 2022, he pledged to restore security to both the Negev and the Galilee.

With the national guard, Ben Gvir is hoping to do just that. Likely to be heavily armed – with both weaponry as well as surveillance tools — the national guard will be utilized to deter and violently disperse Palestinian mobilization across the 1948 territories. In the short-term, Israel’s national guard will undoubtedly be deployed to facilitate the arbitrary arrest, harassment, assault, and criminalization of Palestinian citizens at exponentially growing rates. In the long-term, the national guard threatens to disrupt Palestinian community cohesion and further institutionalize Israel’s system of apartheid. Increasing rates of arrest and detention will only render Palestinians more vulnerable to Israel’s discriminatory policies, including punitive home demolitions, expulsion through deportation, and denaturalization.

Policy Recommendations

In order to challenge Israel’s national guard, the following steps must be taken:

Palestinians and allies should coordinate specific campaigns calling for sanctions against Ben-Gvir and demand an end to his impunity.
Civil society groups, activists, and allies must follow the leadership of Palestinian organizations in 1948 territories and raise awareness of the national guard through campaigns that expose it and its leaders for their blatant racism, discrimination, and violence.
Palestinians from across Palestine should expand efforts to defy Israel’s forced fragmentation and engage in collaborative and strategic organizing.
Allies and policymakers alike must recognize that Israel’s system of apartheid extends from the river to the sea, and refute any assertions that it is geographically limited to the West Bank and Gaza.

The post Israel’s National Guard: A Tool for Palestinian Erasure appeared first on Al-Shabaka.

This content originally appeared on Al-Shabaka and was authored by Ahmad Omar.

NATO-Led Forces Remain On Guard After Violent Clashes In Kosovo

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Tue, 30 May 2023 15:25:50 +0000

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

The Fight Continues Against Chicago’s Old Guard

In These Times Editors — Fri, 26 May 2023 12:00:00 +0000

The Chicago mayoral runoff in April highlighted an ideological schism: Chicagoans chose Brandon Johnson, who promised progressive change, and rejected Paul Vallas, who championed centrist and right-wing policies.

The referendum was reminiscent of Chicago’s 1983 election between Republican Bernie Epton and progressive firebrand Harold Washington, who was also promising a progressive platform to a city that felt let down by its previous mayor. After Washington won, David Moberg wrote about his calls for a striking and fresh look at Chicago with “the greatest grassroots effort in the history of the city.” Johnson, a former middle school teacher, is calling for a similar approach.

In 1983, David Moberg wrote:

With his first words as mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington made it clear that he was not retreating from the reform program of his campaign. Within three days, the old guard of the City Council made it equally clear that they were going to fight without quarter for their own power and for business as usual.

Beneath whatever working compromise emerges, that struggle will undoubtedly continue during the next four years. Yet the old guard can hold onto its power only through obstructionism and confrontation that would deeply damage the city economically and continue racial polarization. They may be ready to pay that price, but Washington may also be able to convince enough skeptical white voters—and the necessary margin of their representatives—that urban suicide is too much to pay for defense of the prerogatives of the old machine.

In a short, tough speech at his April 30 inauguration in the auditorium at the end of Navy Pier, Washington depicted the city as in a crisis comparable to that after 1 the great fire of 1871. The school system may be $200 million in the red next year. The public transit system faces its own $200 million deficit. And Washington's transition team estimated that the city's general fund could run as much as $150 million short this year out of a $2 billion budget, roughly half of which is locked into payments for interest, pensions and similar unavoidable items.

Washington called for immediate austerity and cuts. While outgoing Mayor Jane Byrne sat nearby staring ahead icily, he announced that he was freezing city hiring and wages and dismissing the 541 employees that she had added to the payrolls in a last-minute hiring binge. (Byrne tried to add many more and also attempted to switch political appointees into protected civil service slots.) Washington said that he would cut both unnecessary programs and executive salaries; the next day he slashed his own salary by 20 percent.

Although the city's severe financial problems, exacerbated by Byrne, will hamstring Washington as he attempts to improve city services and stimulate economic development, the austerity budget may give him greater flexibility in eliminating much of the waste built in by machine politics over the years. Court victories by liberal reformers have greatly circumscribed the mayor's powers to fire people for political reasons, but many of the leftover political appointees may be axed for economic reasons or their salaries could be cut so deeply that they will resign. It may be necessary for Washington to exercise such administrative powers in order to create a working majority in the City Council.

The old "evil cabal" of Democratic country chairman Ed Vrdolyak and Alderman Ed Burke—at first Byrne's enemies, then her allies—had an anti-reform movement well underway even as Washington minced no words about replacing the ancient, decrepit machine with a new politics of neighborhood involvement and openness in city government. By the Monday after the inauguration, despite last-minute lobbying efforts by Washington and his allies, Vrdolyak had assembled a majority of the Council behind a package of rules changes that would greatly strengthen the Council's powers to block legislation in committees—setting the stage for more direct Council control over hiring and personnel practices. He also drew up a plan to reorganize the Council: the 20 committees were expanded to 29 so that all of his allies, including freshmen members, were given chairs or top posts. Only three blacks were named committee heads, and Wilson Frost—chair of the finance committee and the leading black machine alderman—was stripped of his powerful position for playing the leading role behind the scenes in trying to organize the council to minimize Vrdolyak's influence.

Sensing that Vrdolyak had the upper hand, the Washington forces played for delay. When the first Council session was convened on May 3, Washington immediately recognized the one white machine politician in his camp, who moved to adjourn. Washington ended the meeting. Then, in the midst of calls for a roll call vote, the Washington bloc walked out. Vrdolyak, the former president pro tern, seized the floor, was elected acting president by the rump session and presided over 29-0 votes in favor of his rules and reorganization. With the exception of the lone Hispanic, a machine appointee, the Vrdolyak bloc was all white. All 16 blacks, the four liberal white reformers and one other white alderman were with Washington.

Some whites on the Council—some newcomers who ousted old machine hacks, some who are loyal to Richard M. Daley or other figures who distrust Vrdolyak—were considered potential Washington allies. And, despite the vote with Vrdolyak, some of them continued to indicate a desire for compromise and a willingness to support Washington. "I'm still not 100 percent in favor of it [the Vrdolyak plan for which he voted]," new member Joseph Kotlarz said later. "I'm very much in favor of a compromise."

Fear of reform motivated most of the Vrdolyak 29, but in the opinion of Council members, others came along out of fear of supporting a black mayor and out of a sense that "Fast Eddie" had the votes and that Washington, if he was truly going to abolish patronage, had little to offer them.

"Vrdolyak took the position some time last week [before the vote] that he was going to take control, and he wasn't going to talk to anybody," said liberal Alderman Martin Oberman. "He took advantage of racial fears in some of these fellows' wards. He took advantage of a new administration coming in and having a lot of things to worry about besides talking to every alderman. And he put together a majority.... These weighty decisions were not made because of a lack of phone calls. They were made because Vrdolyak and his cronies want to run the city."

Washington could have cut the same deal Byrne did four years ago—but he is apparently determined to fight for reform. "If it was a loss, it may be a loss on good grounds," said reformer Alderman David Orr. "Any mayor could get a victory by paying people's price. But at some point if you've got principles, you have to go down with your ship rather than give up."

Washington has neither given up nor has he gone down irrevocably. He immediately argued that the Council's "rump session" was illegal and its decisions are not binding, and afterward he continued to negotiate for a compromise. He also ordered his new acting comptroller not to issue checks for the new committees, which he estimated would add $500,000 in costs to the already beleaguered budget. Pushed early into a confrontation that he wanted to delay, Washington now must deal with a more highly polarized Council and a renewal of racial tensions that he hoped to diffuse. But if Vrdolyak has proven he has power, Washington can flex his muscles, too.

In his first day in office, Washington appointed a small core of officials—well balanced between blacks and whites—that include newcomers from outside and a few of the better Byrne administrators. Although the city's bureaucracy is highly politicized—most workers owe loyalty to one or another political boss—Washington could not afford to get rid of many of them, even if he had a free hand. He needs their knowledge of how the city works, even though as his transition team carries on its massive research into the city's past practices, it is reportedly discovering mind-boggling examples of waste, padding and outright corruption.

Even if he cannot and does not want to win Council support by offering jobs, he might be able to win support by agreeing not to dismiss certain friends and relatives of Council members. In the meantime, he is forced to work with a government apparatus that often cannot be trusted. While this infighting continues, part of the Washington campaign staff is beginning to work on a series of "town meetings" to be held throughout the city that will permit Washington to listen to neighborhood desires, establish better direct relationships with each part of the city and begin to mobilize grassroots support for his program.

Other reform elements are also moving-to expand their efforts—including the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment, PRO-CAN (Progressive Chicago Area Network) and a new Unity Democratic Congress —put together by Slim Coleman, a long-time white organizer in the poor Uptown neighborhood—that will support Washington and challenge the machine (for example, run delegates for the 1984 Democratic convention).

The struggles for power that marked the primary and general election continue unabated. In order to generate the "spirit of renewal" that Washington called for in his inaugural speech, the new mayor will have to rely on and strengthen what he saw as the key to his recent election—"the greatest grassroots effort in the history of the city."

This content originally appeared on In These Times and was authored by In These Times Editors.

Pacific leaders arrive in Port Moresby ahead of Modi and Blinken PNG visit

APR editor — Sun, 21 May 2023 11:56:58 +0000

By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist

Pacific leaders are starting to trickle into Papua New Guinea for two high level meetings and a number of side talks.

The leaders are set to meet with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a high-level US delegation in Port Moresby tomorrow.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape told local media on Thursday that President Joe Biden had called to apologise for his absence due to the need to return to Washington for meetings with Congressional leaders to raise its debt ceiling issue and avoid a default.

“He conveyed his sincerest apologies that he cannot make it into our country,” Marape said.

“I did place the invitation to him [that] at the next earliest available time, please come and visit us here.”

Biden has confirmed that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will arrive on Monday to meet with PNG for a bilateral meeting and engage in a separate meeting with the Pacific Islands Forum leaders.

Biden also invited Marape and other Pacific leaders to Washington later this year for the second US summit with the Pacific Islands Forum.

“He did invite again the Pacific Island leaders to go back for a progressive continuation of the meeting that we have initially held last September in Washington,” Marape said.

Fiji’s Rabuka already in PNG
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has already arrived in Papua New Guinea.

He was greeted by acting Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso.

“After being welcomed by young traditional Motu Koitabu dancers, PM Rabuka made a courtesy visit to Government House and met with Governor-General Grand Chief Sir Bob Dadae,” Rosso said in a statement.

He has since been hosted by Marape for dinner at the State Function Room at Parliament House.

“PM Rabuka will be joined by other Pacific Island leaders, including New Zealand PM Chris Hipkins, who will travel into PNG this weekend,” Rosso said.

The traditional presentation of kamunaga or whale’s tooth was accorded to Governor-General Dadae to convey Fiji’s respect and appreciation for the historical and traditional ties shared between our two countries and moreso to further advance regional cooperation. pic.twitter.com/vbFOCrmTLk

— Sitiveni Rabuka (@slrabuka) May 19, 2023

The leaders will be in Port Moresby for the third Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC).

According to Marape, 14 of the 18 Pacific Islands Forum member leaders, including New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, are expected to be in attendance.

Marape calls for calm
Marape said a Defence Cooperation Agreement that is being mulled over in anticipation of an upcoming bilateral meeting with the US was consistent with the country’s “constitutional provisions”.

The cabinet is aware of the agreement, “cabinet has not concluded on this. It is awaiting cabinet conclusion,” he said.

He has called for people to trust in the process as he believes it would have a positive impact on the country.

“Another agreement called a 505 agreement, separate agreement, allows for us to have a working partnership with the US, US Navy and the US Coast Guard.

“With the US Coast Guard, it now gives us an opportune time to access not just on maritime access, but satellite access to illegal fishing, drug traffickers, illegal loggers, all those illegal transportations and activities that happens on high sea,” Marape added.

Meanwhile, PNG’s National Executive Council has confirmed that the public holiday announced for Monday for the National Capital District still stands despite Biden cancelling his attendance.

Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka arrives in PNG and is greeted by a guard of honour. Image: PNG govt/RNZ Pacific

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

University security guard graduates at UPNG with BA degree

APR editor — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 21:46:55 +0000

By Marcia Negri in Port Moresby

The arena was filled with applauses and whistles when Fidelis Kamsnok walked up to the podium to receive his degree at the University of Papua New Guinea’s 68th graduation ceremony held at the Sir John Guise indoor complex.

Kamsnok, a father of three who hails from the East Sepik Province, is currently employed by the university as a member of Uniforce (the security company that guards the Waigani campus).

He had remained committed as a guard since joining the university in 2010 until yesterday when he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Professional Studies) degree.

READ MORE: Other PNG education reports

“There were challenges as a father, working and taking on the course majoring in information and communication science.

“It was challenging in the family, looking after kids, and kids have their own needs. I have a son and two daughters, but I have to balance my needs as a father and theirs as well,” the Sepik man said.

After clocking 10 years with the university as a guard, Kamsnok applied for studies back in 2020 and the commitment he has put in his studies made it possible for him to join others and walk up to the stage on Tuesday with pride and obtain his degree.

He said the university had a policy where you had to be a serving member for seven years before applying for professional studies, adding that it took three years of studies for those who wanted to attain a degree in professional studies.

‘Balancing your life’
In his encouragement to others who are in similar positions, the guard said: “It’s through the faith you have.

“If you have to balance your life in helping kids, then you can do that, it’s possible.

“Everything is possible, you have to manage yourself.”

That is what Kamsnok did for the past three years.

While studying, he managed his time between studies and work and his family.

He spoke of how privileged he was to have achieved this degree, especially getting support from his family and mainly through his uncle’s endless help.

He said that without the support he would not have achieved his goal.

Marcia Negri is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

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

Georgia National Guard Will Use Phone Location Tracking to Recruit High School Children

Sam Biddle — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 11:00:11 +0000

The Georgia Army National Guard plans to combine two deeply controversial practices — military recruiting at schools and location-based phone surveillance — to persuade teens to enlist, according to contract documents reviewed by The Intercept.

The federal contract materials outline plans by the Georgia Army National Guard to geofence 67 different public high schools throughout the state, targeting phones found within a one-mile boundary of their campuses with recruiting advertisements “with the intent of generating qualified leads of potential applicants for enlistment while also raising awareness of the Georgia Army National Guard.” Geofencing refers generally to the practice of drawing a virtual border around a real-world area and is often used in the context of surveillance-based advertising as well as more traditional law enforcement and intelligence surveillance. The Department of Defense expects interested vendors to deliver a minimum of 3.5 million ad views and 250,000 clicks, according to the contract paperwork.

While the deadline for vendors attempting to win the contract was the end of this past February, no public winner has been announced.

The ad campaign will make use of a variety of surveillance advertising techniques, including capturing the unique device IDs of student phones, tracking pixels, and IP address tracking. It will also plaster recruiting solicitations across Instagram, Snapchat, streaming television, and music apps. The documents note that “TikTok is banned for official DOD use (to include advertising),” owing to allegations that the app is a manipulative, dangerous conduit for hypothetical Chinese government propaganda.

The Georgia Army National Guard did not respond to a request for comment.

While the planned campaign appears primarily aimed at persuading high school students to sign up, the Guard is also asking potential vendors to also target “parents or centers of influence (i.e. coaches, school counselors, etc.)” with recruiting ads. The campaign plans not only call for broadcasting recruitment ads to kids at school, but also for pro-Guard ads to follow these students around as they continue using the internet and other apps, a practice known as retargeting. And while the digital campaign may begin within the confines of the classroom, it won’t remain there: One procurement document states the Guard is interested in “retargeting to high school students after school hours when they are at home,” as well as “after school hours. … This will allow us to capture potential leads while at after-school events.”

“Location based tracking is not legitimate. It’s largely based on the collecting of people’s location data that they’re not aware of and haven’t given meaningful permission for.”

Although it’s possible that children caught in the geofence might have encountered a recruiter anyway — the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act mandated providing military recruiters with students’ contact information — critics of the plan say the use of geolocational data is an inherently invasive act. “Location based tracking is not legitimate,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s largely based on the collecting of people’s location data that they’re not aware of and haven’t given meaningful permission for.” The complex technology underpinning a practice like geofencing can obscure what it’s really accomplishing, argues Benjamin Lynde, an attorney with the ACLU of Georgia. “I think we have to start putting electronic surveillance in the context of what we would accept if it weren’t electronic,” Lynde told The Intercept. “If there were military recruiters taking pictures of students and trying to identify them that way, parents wouldn’t think that conduct is acceptable.” Lynde added that the ACLU of Georgia did not believe there were any state laws constraining geofence surveillance.

The sale and use of location data is largely uncontrolled in the United States, and the legal and regulatory vacuum has created an unscrupulous cottage industry of brokers and analytics firms that turn our phones’ GPS pings into a commodity. The practice has allowed for a variety of applications, including geofence warrants that compel companies like Google to give police a list of every device within a targeted area at a given time. Last year, The Intercept reported on a closed-door technology demo in which a private surveillance firm geofenced the National Security Agency and CIA headquarters to track who came and went.

Although critics of geofencing point to the practice’s invasiveness, they also argue that the inherent messiness of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals means that the results are prone to inaccuracy. “This creates the possibility of both false positives and false negatives,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote earlier this year in a Supreme Court amicus brief opposing geofence warrants served to Google. “People could be implicated for a crime when they were nowhere near the scene, or the actual perpetrator might not be included at all in the data Google provides to police.”

It’s doubtful that potential vendors for the Georgia Guard have data accurate enough to avoid targeting kids under 17, according to Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely tracks the surveillance advertising sector. “It would also sweep up plenty of families with young kids who gave them phones before they turned 16 and who were using networks that had location-targetable ads,” he explained in a message to The Intercept. “Very, very few advertising networks track the age of kids under 18. It’s one giant bucket.”

In-school recruiting been hotly debated for decades, both defended as a necessary means of maintaining an all-volunteer military and condemned as a coercive practice that exploits the immaturity of young students. While the state’s plan specifies targeting only high school juniors and seniors ages 17 and above, demographic ad targeting is known to be error prone, and experts told The Intercept it’s possible the recruiting messages could reach the phones of younger children. “Generally, commercial databases aren’t known for their high levels of accuracy,” explained the ACLU’s Stanley. “If you have some incorrect ages in there, it’s really not a big deal [to the broker].” The accuracy of demographic targeting aside, there’s also a problem of geographic reality: “There are middle schools within a mile of those high schools,” according to Lynde of the ACLU of Georgia. “There’s no way there can be a specific delineation of who they’re targeting in that geofence.”

Indeed, dozens of the schools pegged for geotargeting have middle schools, elementary schools, parks, churches, and other sites where children may congregate within a mile radius, according to Google Maps. A geofence containing Hillgrove High School in Powder Springs, Georgia, would also snare phone-toting students at Still Elementary School and Lovinggood Middle School, the latter a mere thousand feet away. A mile-radius around Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia, would also include the Walnut Grove Elementary School, along with the nearby Oak Meadow Montessori School, a community swim club, a public park, and an aquatic center. Lynde, who himself enlisted with the Georgia National Guard in 2005, added that he’s concerned beaming recruiting ads directly to kids’ phones “could be a means to bypass parental involvement in the recruiting process,” allowing the state to circumvent the scrutiny adults might bring to traditional military recruiting methods like brochures and phone calls to a child’s house. “Parents should be involved from the onset.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Sam Biddle.

Unidentified attackers open fire on office of Albanian broadcaster Top Channel, kill security guard

Erik Crouch — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 14:07:15 +0000

Berlin, March 28, 2023—Albanian authorities must quickly and thoroughly investigate the recent attack on the privately owned TV station Top Channel and ensure those responsible are brought to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

Shortly after midnight on Monday, March 28, unidentified people fired 20 to 25 bullets from a vehicle as they passed Top Channel’s office in the capital city of Tirana, according to media reports, a report by the outlet, and Top Channel editor-in-chief Altin Krekas, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

The attack killed Pal Kola, a security guard stationed outside the office. Police opened an investigation and later that day found an abandoned Range Rover that had been set on fire about 25 miles from the scene of the attack, according to those reports.

“Albanian authorities must conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the recent attack on Top Channel and ensure that those responsible for killing a security guard at the outlet’s headquarters are brought to justice,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Authorities must treat this incident as high priority and transparently investigate whether the attack was connected to the broadcaster’s reporting.”

In a statement, Top Channel called the incident an “unprecedented terrorist act” that was “carried out to damage and attack the mission of free media and the power of free speech.”

“We constantly report on different issues and for the moment we are not able to make any connection with a specific reporting,” Krekas told CPJ, adding that the outlet had “not received any specific threats before the attack.”

In February, three men threatened and attacked a three-person crew for Top Channel‘s investigative TV show Fiks Fare as they were documenting illegal mining.

CPJ emailed the Albanian national police for comment but did not immediately receive any response.

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

‘What Color Shirts’? Far-Right Ben-Gvir to Get Control Over Israeli National Guard

Brett Wilkins — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 19:57:15 +0000

Democracy defenders on Monday sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's agreement to place the country's National Guard under the control of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right extremist who has advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Netanyahu's move is in exchange for a promise from Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party to remain in the prime minister's governing coalition despite an earlier threat to exit if Netanyahu delayed a highly controversial judicial overhaul. Facing massive street protests and a general strike by the nation's largest trade union, Netanyahu agreed on Monday to postpone the legislation until April or early May.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets Sunday to protest Netanyahu's firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who a day earlier advocated for a monthlong pause to the judicial reform.

"Instead of democracy, Israel doubles down on fascism against Palestinians."

Netanyahu explained in a televised address Monday that he is "not willing to tear the country apart," while asserting that "there must not be civil war."

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in response to Netanyahu's deal with his security minister: "We already saw what happened when Ben-Gvir wanted to suppress the protests, now one can only imagine what will happen when he has his own militias."

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ACRI continued:

It is important to understand—the "National Guard" that Netanyahu promised is a private armed militia that will answer directly to Ben-Gvir. This is a police unit intended first and foremost to act in mixed cities, first and foremost against the Arab population. Such power in Ben-Gvir's hands = certain violation of Arabs' rights. Advancing such a proposal will also enable him to use these forces against the protests and demonstrators.
This is a new and dangerous addition to the coup d'état that we are witnessing. As if it is not enough to act against the judicial system, now we see operative steps to take authorities from the police and turn them into Ben-Gvir's Revolutionary Guards.

"The National Guard must be under the police rather than under the control of Lehava and the rest of the Kahanists," asserted Gilad Kariv, a member of Israel's parliament representing the center-left Israeli Labor Party, as he referenced the far-right Jewish supremacist political group and followers of Meir Kahane, the Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990.

For progressive critics, the idea of Ben-Gvir having a military unit under his direct control presents a frightening prospect.

None
— (@)

Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and supporting the Kahanist terror group Kach after he advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. He is also an open admirer of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish supremacist who murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers at a mosque in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.

Moshe Karadi, former general commissioner of the Israel Police, told the Times of Israel that Ben-Gvir "has formed a private militia for his political needs."

"He's dismantling Israeli democracy" and "turning Israel into a dictatorship," Karadi added.

Currently a unit within the Israel Border Police, the National Guard was established under the previous Israeli government amid rising Palestinian resistance and in the wake of the 2021 military assault on Gaza.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Chinese coast guard ship chased out of Vietnam waters

By RFA Staff — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 09:59:48 +0000

A Chinese coast guard ship and a Vietnamese fisheries patrol boat apparently had a tense encounter during the weekend in the South China Sea, coming as close as 10 meters to each other, according to data from Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking website.

The data, based on the ships’ automatic identification system (AIS) signals, shows that the China Coast Guard ship, CCG5205, and Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 came “crazy close” to one another at around 7 a.m. on Sunday local time (midnight UTC), said a researcher based in California.

As of Monday afternoon (local time), the CCG5205 was operating in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone after it left Vietnam waters where the Kiem Ngu 278 had been pursuing the considerably larger Chinese ship since March 24, tracking data showed.

At one point the two ships were less than 10 meters (32.8 feet) apart, according to Ray Powell, the Project Myoushu (South China Sea) lead at Stanford University, who first spotted the incident at sea.

“The Vietnamese ship was pretty bold given the difference in size – the Chinese ship is twice the size of the Vietnamese ship,” Powell said.

“It must have been a very tense engagement.”

The incident occurred some 50 nautical miles (92.6 kilometers) south of Vanguard Bank, a known South China Sea flashpoint between Vietnam and China.

About 90 minutes later, the Chinese ship left Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) where it had been since Friday evening.

An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and in the seabed.

Ship-tracking data shows Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 was closely following the Chinese coast guard vessel CCG5205. [Marine Traffic]

Last month, the same China Coast Guard ship was accused of approaching about 150 yards (137 meters) from a Philippine Coast Guard ship and pointing a laser at the crew, causing temporary blindness to them.

On Feb. 6, the Philippine Coast Guard said that the Chinese ship had “directed a military-grade laser light” twice at the BRP Malapascua, which was on its way to deliver food and supplies to the troops stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea.

Manila lodged a diplomatic protest and the U.S. State Department issued a statement supporting “our Philippine allies.”

Beijing rejected the allegation, saying the Philippine ship had “intruded into the waters” off the Spratly Islands “without Chinese permission” and the Chinese coast guard ship had “acted in a professional and restrained way.”

‘Too close for comfort’

In the Sunday encounter, Marine Traffic’s past track showed the Chinese CCG5205 and the Vietnamese Kiem Ngu 278 were so close that they could have collided.

“Ten meters between ships is really too close for comfort,” said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based regional maritime analyst.

“Depending on the sea state, the risk of collision is fairly high,” Koh told Radio Free Asia (RFA).

A retired Vietnamese Navy senior officer, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the two ships must have narrowly escaped a collision because they were sailing in opposite directions and at a very slow speed.

“If they were heading to the same direction a collision would have not been avoidable as the distance is too close and too dangerous,” he said.

Chinese ships had deliberately rammed Vietnamese patrol ships in the past, he added, but not in recent years.

The CCG5205 left Sanya, in Hainan island, for the current mission on March 11 and entered Vietnam’s EEZ the first time on March 12.

It then moved to the overlapping area between claimant states in the South China Sea and Malaysia’s EEZ before entering Vietnam’s EEZ again on March 21 for a couple hours and for the third time on March 24 when the Kiem Ngu 278 chased it.

At around midnight UTC on March 26, Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 and China’s CCG5205 were dangerously close. [Marine Traffic]

The Kiem Ngu 278, officially named Vietnamese Fisheries Resources Surveillance ship KN-278, is homeported in Vung Tau, south of Ho Chi Minh City.

It left base on March 13 and had been following the Chinese vessel closely since.

In July 2021, the Kiem Ngu 278 was following another Chinese coast guard ship, the CCG5202, which Vietnam accused of harassing its gas-exploration activities.

Six parties hold claims to parts of the South China Sea and its natural resources but China’s claim is the biggest and Beijing has been trying to hinder other countries’ oil and gas activities in the waters inside its self-claimed nine-dash line.

A 2,600-ton Chinese survey vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi Si Hao, had lingered inside Vietnam’s EEZ from March 9 until March 25, when it switched off its AIS, according to data from Marine Traffic.

Its whereabouts are currently unknown.

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

Philippine Coast Guard joins search for missing Taiwanese fishing boat

By BenarNews Staff — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 10:41:35 +0000

The Philippines deployed search-and-rescue teams Monday to help look for a missing Taiwan-flagged fishing boat with a crew of one Taiwanese and five Indonesians, the coast guard said.

The boat, Sheng Feng No. 128, was last seen some 767 kilometers (414 nautical miles) northwest of the island nation of Palau in the western Pacific, the Philippine Coast Guard said in a statement.

The Coast Guard Command Center in Manila said it had directed Coast Guard Districts in the eastern seaboard and facing the Pacific to carry out the search-and-rescue operations after Commander Arthur Yang, Taiwan’s coast guard attache, requested assistance.

Two U.S. Coast Guard aircraft had earlier been deployed to “conduct air surveillance but yielded a negative result,” the PCG said.

Similarly, a commercial vessel as well as eight Taiwanese fishing boats had scoured the vast seas but come up empty, it said. Two Taiwanese coast guard cutters were also on “the way to search vicinity waters,” the statement said.

The Philippine assistance was requested “due to the possibility that the missing Taiwanese fishing vessel drifted towards the country’s eastern seaboard,” the Philippine Coast Guard said.

The Philippines adheres to the “one-China policy” but enjoys healthy commercial relations with Taiwan, where an estimated 150,000 Filipinos live and work, making them the third largest contingent of expatriate workers.

Both Taipei and Manila also have overlapping claims to parts of the South China Sea, along with China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei.

Recently, the Philippines granted the United States greater access to its military bases over fears of a potential invasion of Taiwan by China.

Taiwanese investigators ride a rubber boat as they inspect a ship involved in the alleged shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman during their probe in Manila, May 28, 2013.
Credit: Aaron Favila/AP Photo, File

The last diplomatic row between the Philippines and Taiwan took place in 2013, when Taipei imposed sanctions on Manila after the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman by Filipino coast guard personnel in waters north of the Philippine archipelago.

Taiwan alleged that the killing took place in its exclusive economic zone and was a violation of international law. The sanctions included the freezing of applications for work permits, the cessation of economic exchanges and military exercises in waters between the two sides. The row however was later resolved, and diplomatic ties normalized.

Jojo Rinoza and Jeoffrey Maitem contributed to this report from Manila and Davao City, Philippines.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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

Philippine Coast Guard says Chinese vessel blinded crew with laser

By RFA and BenarNews Staff — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

UPDATED AT 12:35 a.m. ET ON 02-13-2023

The Philippine Coast Guard on Monday accused China of performing dangerous maneuvers and pointing a laser at one of its vessels, causing temporary blindness to the crew.

Japan meanwhile said on Sunday a Chinese Navy ship intruded into its territorial waters for the first time since December. Territorial waters are the sea areas that lie within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of a country's coast.

RFA reported on Feb. 7 on the harassment of the BRP Malapascua by China Coast Guard (CCG) ship 5205 inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) a day earlier.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has now confirmed the incident, saying that the Malapascua at that time was supporting a rotation and resupply mission of the Philippine Navy in Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) in the West Philippine Sea.

The West Philippine Sea is the name usually used by the Philippines for the part of the South China Sea within the nation’s EEZ, where it holds exclusive rights to natural resources.

Military-grade laser

The PCG, in a statement sent to RFA affiliate BenarNews, said that the CCG vessel 5205 on Feb. 6 “directed a military-grade laser light” twice at the Philippine ship, “causing temporary blindness to her crew at the bridge.”

“The Chinese vessel also made dangerous maneuvers by approaching about 150 yards (137 meters) from the vessel's starboard quarter,” the statement said.

“This is a step up in China’s aggression against the Philippine maritime forces because it involves the use of a directed energy weapon that induces effects on the target,” said Jay Batongbacal, a maritime law analyst at the University of the Philippines.

“Such action should be considered a threat of use of force or acts of aggression contrary to the UN Charter and the Philippines would be well within its rights to take measures to protect its ships and aircraft from such aggressive acts,” Batongbacal said.

The BRP Malapascua was just 10 nautical miles (18.5 kilometers) from the Second Thomas Shoal when it was harassed by the Chinese vessel and had to alter its course to continue its deployment.

File photo showing the BRP Sierra Madre on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea, March 29, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Erik De Castro

The Philippine ship was on a mission to deliver food and supplies to the troops stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, an old naval ship deliberately run aground on the shoal to serve as a military post since 1999.

Another resupply mission last August by a different ship, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, was also obstructed by the Chinese Coast Guard, together with the Chinese maritime militia, according to the PCG statement.

“The deliberate blocking of the Philippine government ships to deliver food and supplies to our military personnel on board the BRP Sierra Madre is a blatant disregard for, and a clear violation of, Philippine sovereign rights in this part of the West Philippine Sea,” it said.

The PCG sent out two photos showing a green light being beamed from an alleged Chinese vessel.

“As far as I can recall, these are the first images available to the public that prove such behavior by the Chinese maritime forces at sea,” said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based military analyst.

“Regional authorities need to persistently gather such evidence and publicize them routinely to create international awareness,” Koh said.

Jay Batongbacal from the University of the Philippines, meanwhile, said that in his opinion all nations “should agree that the employment of such means against government vessels peacefully undertaking maritime activities within their own jurisdictions should be considered as unprovoked and hostile acts that merit a corresponding and calibrated response.”

Beijing has yet to respond to the Philippine Coast Guard’s accusation.

Military grade lasers are harmful and can cause blindness if shone into a person’s eyes. Pointing a laser at someone can also have a psychological impact, as laser targeting often happens right before a firing of live munitions.

The Philippine Coast Guard said the laser beam had caused temporary blindness to the BRP Malapascua’s crew. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard

This is not the first time China has been accused of pointing laser lights at foreign aircraft and vessels.

A year ago, on Feb. 17, 2022, Australia said a Chinese navy ship pointed a laser at one of its surveillance airplanes in the Arafura Sea within Australia’s EEZ.

In Feb. 2020, a Chinese military warship reportedly trained a laser on a U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft while it was flying over the Pacific Ocean. The Chinese government denied the accusation, saying the P-8 was flying too low near its warships despite warnings.

In 2019, Australian navy helicopter pilots taking part in the Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019 military exercise in the South China Sea said they were hit with laser beams from fishing boats suspected of being part of China’s maritime militia.

Japan’s security concerns

In another development, Japan accused China of encroaching upon its sovereignty, causing “security concerns.”

“On February 12, it was confirmed that a Chinese Navy Shupang-class survey ship sailed through Japan’s territorial waters near Yakushima Island,” the Japanese Defense Ministry said.

The Chinese ship was first spotted at around 12:50 a.m. on Sunday south of the island of Yakushima.

It entered Japan's territorial waters southwest of the island at around 2:30 a.m. and sailed there for about an hour and 40 minutes, the ministry said.

“This is the 10th time, the first since December last year, that we announce Chinese Naval vessel’s entry into Japan’s territorial waters,” it said, adding that “these Chinese naval activities are of national security concern.”

Since December, after Tokyo designated Beijing an unprecedented “strategic challenge” in its latest National Security Strategy, China has stepped up patrols around Japan, especially near the Senkaku islands which are under Tokyo’s control but also claimed by Beijing.

On Sunday, Philippines President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. concluded his four-day official visit to Japan.

Marcos told Philippine media that he was open to the idea of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with Japan as long as the deal is “appropriate" and does not increase tensions” in the South China Sea.

Before that, the president said Manila will consider a proposed trilateral defense and security deal with the United States and Japan.

Story updated to include analyst comments.

BenarNews staff in Manila contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

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

China Coast Guard ‘harassed’ Philippine counterpart, security expert says

By RFA and BenarNews Staff — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 08:03:00 +0000

The Chinese coast guard was again on Tuesday accused of “tailing and harassing” Philippine law enforcement ships in the South China Sea, possibly due to Manila’s recently announced security agreements with Washington, a maritime security expert said.

China Coast Guard (CCG) ship 5205 “stopped, harassed and followed Philippine Coast Guard BRP Malapascua near Sabina Shoal for more than eight hours on Monday,” alleged Ray Powell, Project Myoushu (South China Sea) lead at Stanford University in California.

Sabina Shoal is a feature located at the so-called Dangerous Grounds in the Spratly Islands, well inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but also claimed by China.

An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and seabed but those in the South China Sea overlap with the so-called nine-dash line that China uses to claim “historical rights” to most of the sea.

The Philippine Foreign Ministry told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, on Tuesday that the incident alleged by Powell “still needs to be verified.”

The same expert last Wednesday told RFA that two CCG ships were monitoring and tailing the movements of the naval patrol vessel BRP Andres Bonifacio near Mischief Reef, also inside the Philippine EEZ.

The Philippine Coast Guard on Saturday confirmed the report to a number of media outlets, including Bloomberg and CNN, but backtracked Monday, saying last week’s incident is “unverified.”

Regular harassment

In the latest event that took place on Monday, Ray Powell, analyzing automatic identification system (AIS) signals transmitted by vessels, said the CCG 5205 came to a stop right across the BRP Malapascua's path on Sunday evening before “going dark,” or switching off its AIS signals.

The BRP Malapascua then slowed down and “essentially stopped” for hours east of Sabina Shoal.

BRP Malapascua’s past track near Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea Feb. 5-Feb. 6, 2023. Credit: MarineTraffic

Data obtained by RFA from the ship tracking website MarineTraffic show the Philippine law enforcement vessel left the area Monday morning without stopping at Sabina Shoal and went west.

Powell told RFA he was “confident” that the CCG 5205 remained in close contact and had a “protracted confrontation” with the Philippine vessel.

While Monday’s incident is yet to be confirmed by Philippine authorities, CCG ships have reportedly stepped up their activities and harassment against Philippine law enforcement vessels in the Philippines EEZ.

Last December, the Chinese coast guard was accused of stopping the warship BRP Andres Bonifacio from approaching Scarborough Shoal, known in the Philippines as Panatag Shoal, which is only 198 kilometers (123 miles) from the strategic Subic Bay but under China’s control.

A U.N. tribunal in 2016 dismissed China’s sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing refused to recognize the ruling.

A Philippine fisherman watches a China Coast Guard vessel patrolling the disputed Scarborough Shoal, April 5, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Erik De Castro

Last November, CCG ship 5203 intercepted a Philippine Navy ship which was towing some wreckage from a Chinese Long March rocket and seized the wreckage.

The following month, CCG vessel 5205 attempted to obstruct a Philippine naval ship that was carrying supplies for troops stationed on the grounded BRP Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal.

“We may be seeing an uptick in harassment incidents directed at the Philippines specifically, possibly due to the administration’s recently announced security agreements with the U.S.,” said Powell, adding that “Beijing uses a variety of tools to punish and discourage behavior it doesn’t like.”

Joint patrols

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an official visit to the Philippines last week, during which Manila agreed to grant the U.S. access to a total of nine military bases in the country.

The two sides also agreed to restart a plan to conduct joint patrols in the South China Sea that was shelved under former President Rodrigo Duterte, a move analysts said is much needed amid China’s increasing assertiveness in the disputed waters.

A new study by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), a research institution at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., asserted that CCG ships “maintained near-daily patrols at key features” in the sea, despite that most of them are located in neighboring countries’ EEZs.

CCG vessels have been accused of regularly harassing oil and gas exploration activities by Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Six parties hold contesting claims over the resource-rich South China Sea but China’s claims are by far the most expansive.

The Chinese coast guard now has a powerful fleet of around 150 vessels, Kyodo news agency reported recently, quoting sources familiar with the matter.

Around 20 vessels were transferred from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, it said.

The Chinese coast guard now has more than twice the 70 large patrol vessels possessed by the Japan Coast Guard, Kyodo said, adding that the Japanese government “has become increasingly alarmed” about the development.

Tokyo and Beijing have been embroiled in a long-standing dispute over the Senkaku Islands, which China calls Diaoyu and are under Japan’s control but also claimed by China.

BenarNews staff in Manila contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

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

Former Vietnamese Coast Guard commander convicted of embezzlment

By RFA Vietnamese — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 21:30:05 +0000

Vietnamese authorities convicted the former commander of Vietnam’s Coast Guard, Nguyen Van Son, of embezzling more than U.S.$2 million from the Defense Ministry, state media announced on Thursday.

The commander, alongside several others in the Coast Guard, were accused of taking money allocated to the Ministry’s technology procurement department. In Vietnam, the highest punishment for “state-asset embezzlement” can be the death penalty.

Six others alongside the commander were convicted of the corruption charge, including Gen. Hoang Van Dong, Major Gen. Doan Bao Quyet, Major Gen. Phan Kim Hau, Major Gen. Bui Trung Dung, Colonel Nguyen Van Hung, and Senior Lieutenant Colonel Bui Van Hoe.

According to the indictment, the Ministry of National Defense allocated 450 billion Vietnamese dong (US$19.15 million) to the Coast Guard in February 2019 as its estimated administrative budget for the year.

Some 150 billion dong (US$6.38 million) out of this budget was provided to the Department of Technology to purchase equipment and materials for related agencies.

But then, Commander Nguyen Van Son allegedly directed the Department of Technology’s Director General Nguyen Van Hung that “when purchasing supplies and materials, 50 billion Vietnamese dong must be withdrawn for VCG’s use [public welfare].”

Effectively, the commander is accused of siphoning funds as part of every expenditure made in the technology procurement department.

The indictment adds that under Commander Nguyen Van Hung’s direction, the Department of Technology divided its total allocated budget into 29 bidding packages, of which nine small packages were intentionally valued at less than 10 billion Vietnamese dong each to avoid the Ministry of National Defense’s scrutiny, assessment, and approval.

“To be able to take part in and win the biddings, participating businesses had to agree to the Coast Guard’s suggestions and work with the head of divisions to increase the prices of materials and equipment or give kick-backs,” the indictment said.

Vietnamese authorities have been targeting several mid- and high-ranking officials in a wide-ranging corruption crackdown, with several scandals rocking the government during the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Nawar Nemeh and Malcolm Foster.

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

China’s coast guard ‘monitors’ Philippine navy ship in disputed territory

By RFA Staff — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 10:09:50 +0000

The Chinese coast guard and maritime militia appear to have tailed a Philippine naval vessel inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, a U.S. expert said, as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits the country to push for better access to local military bases.

At least two China Coast Guard (CCG) and a number of Chinese maritime militia ships were monitoring and tailing the movements of the patrol vessel BRP Andres Bonifacio (PS-17) of the Philippine Navy on Wednesday, said Ray Powell, Project Myoushu (South China Sea) lead at Stanford University in California.

As of 1 p.m. Manila time, two Chinese maritime militia vessels departed Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, seemingly “on an intercept course” with the Bonifacio as it circumnavigated Reed (Recto) Bank, said Powell.

The monitoring continued as the Philippine ship conducted a search operation in the waters within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Chinese maritime militia vessels appeared to be on an intercept course with Philippine Navy vessel BRP Andres Bonifacio on Feb. 1, 2023.
Credit: MarineTraffic/@GordianKnotRay on Twitter

“One of the maritime militia ships passed by going north and the CCG ship didn’t seem to interfere in the search operation,” Powell told RFA.

He added that another militia ship “seemed to turn around once it realized the Philippine ship wasn’t going to approach the Second Thomas Shoal,” administered by Manila but claimed by both countries.

Although they didn’t seem to directly interfere with the Bonifacio’s movements, “the timing here is very suggestive that they planned these movements to coincide with the Philippines’ operation,” the retired U.S. Air Force colonel turned academic said.

Robust coast guard presence

In early December 2022, the Chinese coast guard was accused of stopping the same ship from approaching Scarborough Shoal, known in the Philippines as Panatag Shoal, which is only 198 kilometers (123 miles) from the strategic Subic Bay but under China’s control.

A U.N. tribunal in 2016 dismissed China’s sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing refused to recognize the ruling.

Manila said in recent months CCG ships have stepped up their activities and harassment against Philippine law enforcement vessels in the Philippines EEZ.

In November 2022, CCG ship 5203 intercepted a Philippine Navy ship which was towing some wreckage from a Chinese Long March rocket and seized the wreckage.

In December 2022 CCG vessel 5205 attempted to obstruct a Philippine naval ship that was carrying supplies for troops stationed on the grounded BRP Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal.

A new study by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), a research institution at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., asserted that “China’s coast guard presence in the South China Sea is more robust than ever.”

The report said CCG ships “maintained near-daily patrols at key features” in the sea, despite that most of them are located in neighboring countries’ EEZs.

CCG patrol ships 5203, 5204 and 5205 seem to have a semi-permanent presence here, data obtained via ship tracking website MarineTraffic show.

U.S. access to bases

Meanwhile, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its accompanying vessels are operating nearby, the U.S. Pacific Fleet announced.

The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group is “conducting routine operations” in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy said. The carrier has been in the South China Sea since mid-December, 2022, and paid a port visit to Singapore around the Lunar New Year before returning to near the Philippines.

Its latest location, according to the satellite imaging company Planet, is about 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Manila.

U.S. Defense Minister Lloyd Austin is currently in the Philippines on an official visit.

The two countries announced on Thursday that Manila will give the U.S. access to four more locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), allowing the U.S. to rotate troops to a total of nine bases throughout the Philippines.

In addition, the U.S. will help the Philippines modernize its military with $82 million allocated for infrastructure improvements at five current EDCA sites, a joint announcement said.

Responding to the news, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that “defense and security cooperation between countries should be conducive to regional peace and stability, and should not target third parties or harm the interests of third parties.

“Out of selfish interests, the U.S. continues to strengthen its military deployment in the region with a zero-sum mentality, endangering regional peace and stability,” she said.

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

Biden Wielding DNC to Guard Against Progressive Challenge

Norman Solomon — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 06:28:38 +0000

When the Democratic National Committee convenes its winter meeting on Thursday in Philadelphia, a key agenda item will be rubber-stamping Joe Biden’s manipulation of next year’s presidential primaries. There’ll be speeches galore, including one by Biden as a prelude to his expected announcement that he’ll seek a second term. The gathering will exude confidence, at More

The post Biden Wielding DNC to Guard Against Progressive Challenge appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Norman Solomon.

Report: China Coast Guard ‘more robust than ever’

By RFA Staff — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 07:09:42 +0000

The increasingly powerful Chinese coast guard has boosted its presence to an unprecedented level in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, a new report alleged.

Meanwhile, Chinese and Japanese coast guard ships appeared to have had a brief but tense confrontation near the contested Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands in the East China Sea on Monday.

The report ‘Flooding the Zone: China Coast Guard Patrols in 2022’ by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), a research institution at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., asserted that, “China’s coast guard presence in the South China Sea is more robust than ever.”

It said “the China Coast Guard (CCG) maintained near-daily patrols at key features” claimed by China and other neighboring countries.

Together with the ever growing force of maritime militia, the CCG patrols “show Beijing’s determination to assert control over the vast maritime zone within its claimed nine-dash line,” the report said.

The so-called nine-dash line is an imaginary boundary that Beijing uses to demarcate its “historical claims” over nearly 90% of the South China Sea.

China’s claims are disputed by other countries and were rejected by an U.N. tribunal in 2016.

Largest coast guard vessel

The AMTI team analyzed ships’ automatic identification system (AIS) data from the year 2022 across the five features: Second Thomas Shoal, Luconia Shoals, Scarborough Shoal, Vanguard Bank, and Thitu Island.

Several countries hold contesting claims over all the five features but, so far, China has been the most assertive.

CCG “patrols across all five features amounted to 1,703 ship-days in total,” according to the AMTI report, which also noted that the number of days the CCG patrolled at Vanguard Bank, an important site of Vietnamese oil and gas development, more than doubled from 142 days in 2020 to 310 days in 2022.

This has been a major concern for Vietnamese authorities as Vietnam’s economy relies heavily on its oil and gas industry.

“Vanguard Bank, called Bai Tu Chinh in Vietnamese, has become some kind of stopover for Chinese patroling vessels,” said Van Pham, chief administrator of the South China Sea Chronicle Initiative, a Vietnamese independent research project.

“They often anchor at the bank before continuing their patrols,” she said.

“In 2021, CCG ships from Vanguard Bank regularly approached Vietnam’s Lan Tay and Lan Do gas fields, sometimes so close that they would be inside the fields’ security areas and jeopardizing the pipeline,” the analyst said.

Vanguard Bank is where Chinese and Vietnamese law enforcement vessels confronted each other in July 2019, one of the worst standoffs between the two countries in the South China Sea in recent years.

“CCG vessels in general move from one patrol location to another, including spending time at Vanguard Bank and then passing by Tuna Block, an Indonesian gas field in Natuna Sea, en route to Malaysia’s Luconia Shoals,” said AMTI Director Greg Poling.

Chinese coast guard vessel 5901 in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone as of Jan. 31, 2023. Credit: MarineTraffic

Indonesian and Malaysian law enforcement were both put on alert this month when China’s largest coast guard ship 5901 operated in their exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and seabed but those in the South China Sea overlap with China’s nine-dash line.

Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur both sent naval ships to monitor the Chinese vessel’s movements.

The CCG5901, also the world’s largest coast guard vessel, was still in the area on Tuesday, according to data provided by ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.

Confrontations and accidents

“All indications are that these trends will hold in 2023. China will keep the CCG patrolling these locations daily, will harass new oil and gas drilling, and will deploy hundreds of militia in the Spratlys,” Poling told RFA.

“The Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam all stood more or less firm in 2022, which I'd expect to continue this year,” he added. “But there will inevitably be tense run ins and potential accidents that could escalate.”

Vessels from China Maritime Surveillance and the Japan Coast Guard are seen near disputed islands called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea, Sept. 10, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Kyodo

Japanese media reported that four Chinese coast guard ships tried to approach a Japanese-registered private vessel in Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Monday.

This is the second time this year Chinese law enforcement ships were accused of intruding into Japanese waters around the Senkaku chain.

Japan Coast Guard patrol ships secured the safety of the 997-ton Shinsei Maru and warned the Chinese ships to leave the waters, Jiji Press reported.

The ship is said to have been conducting marine research around the Senkakus. Researchers also flew a drone to take images of the islands.

Chinese state media meanwhile said China’s coast guard “expelled Japanese ships that illegally entered Chinese territorial waters around the Diaoyu Islands,” using the Chinese name for the Senkaku islands which are under Japan’s control but also claimed by China.

“China Coast Guard vessels took necessary management and control measures and warned them away according to the law,” a Chinese spokesman was quoted as saying.

Japan said Chinese vessels have intensified activities around Japan after Tokyo designated Beijing an unprecedented “strategic challenge” in its latest National Security Strategy in mid-December.

Chinese warships of the Liaoning carrier group held exercises near Japan in December, 2022, simulating attacks on Japan’s outlying Nansei islands. Tokyo said it would acquire more “counter strike” capabilities and has already planned to bolster missile and electronic warfare capacity on those islands.

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

Georgia’s GOP Gov. Signs Order to Prep National Guard for Police Brutality Protests

Jessica Corbett — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 00:16:04 +0000

Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency through at least February 9 that will enable him to deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops "as necessary."

The order follows protests in Atlanta after 26-year-old forest defender Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran was shot dead last week during a multi-agency raid on an encampment to oppose construction of Cop City, a nearby law enforcement training center. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), which is investigating the case, has said Teran was killed after he shot and wounded a state trooper.

While the order begins by stating that "protests turned violent in downtown Atlanta" last Saturday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreported that Kemp's aides signaled that the move was not about the Cop City demonstrations but rather in anticipation of any potential response to video footage from Memphis, Tennessee showing the arrest of Black motorist Tyre Nichols.

\u201cGeorgia Gov. Brian Kemp is calling up to 1,000 National Guard troops & declaring a state of emergency until Feb 9, a week after police killed forest defender Tortuguita. 12 Cop City opponents were charged with domestic terrorism since. Tomorrow the Tyre Nichols video comes out.\u201d
— Alleen Brown (@Alleen Brown) 1674766682

As Common Dreamsreported earlier Thursday, five fired Memphis cops were charged with second-degree murder and other crimes related to Nichols' death. Footage of the 29-year-old's arrest is expected to be released sometime after 6:00 pm local time on Friday.

"We understand the executive order is purely precautionary based on possible unrest following the release of the videos from Memphis," an official in Georgia with direct knowledge of the situation told the AJC. "There are no immediate intentions to deploy the guard."

The Atlanta Police Department also mentioned the Memphis case in a statement Thursday:

We are closely monitoring the events in Memphis and are prepared to support peaceful protests in our city. We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols. Police officers are expected to conduct themselves in a compassionate, competent, and constitutional manner and these officers failed Tyre, their communities, and their profession. We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful.

In a series of tweets Thursday, the Atlanta Community Press Collective named several people killed by law enforcement in recent years and suggested that Kemp's order is about "trying to instill fear in anyone who stands up against police brutality."

\u201cKemp's declaration of a State of Emergency isn't about property damage at Saturday's protests at all. It's about police murdering #TyreNichols and Tortuguita within two weeks of each other. They're trying to instill fear in anyone who stands up against police brutality.\u201d
— Atlanta Community Press Collective (@Atlanta Community Press Collective) 1674764329

Meanwhile, national groups and progressive lawmakers have echoed local demands for an independent probe in Teran's case.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has highlighted that it is separate from the Georgia State Patrol and said that GBI "is conducting an independent investigation," after which it will "turn the investigative file over to the prosecutor." The agency noted Wednesday that DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston has recused herself from the case so a special prosecutor will be assigned.

Some have pushed back against the "police narrative" that the "corporate media has ran away with" for Teran's case, as forest defender Kamau Franklin toldDemocracy Now! last week, adding that "we find it less than likely that the police version of events is what really happened."

"And that's why we're calling for an independent investigation, not one that's done by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, not one that's done by any federal authority, but a complete independent investigation," Franklin said, "because that's the only way we're going to know what really happened."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Indonesia sends warships to monitor Chinese coast guard vessel

By RFA and BenarNews Staff — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 11:22:00 +0000

Indonesian officials say they’re not worried about the presence of China’s largest coast guard ship in the Natuna Sea.

Jakarta has sent naval ships and a patrol aircraft to the area to monitor the Chinese vessel’s movements but the Navy’s Chief, Adm. Muhammad Ali, said everything is “under control.”

Vietnamese analysts, however, are concerned the Chinese vessel’s presence may signal a prolonged stand-off in the newly demarcated maritime boundaries.

Last month, Vietnam and Indonesia concluded talks on the boundaries of their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which also lie within the imaginary “nine-dash line” that Beijing uses to demarcate what it calls its “historical rights” over almost 90% of the South China Sea.

An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and seabed.

Hanoi and Jakarta have not disclosed details of the agreement and China has not protested officially but Beijing’s largest coast guard ship has been in the area between Vietnam and Indonesia since Dec. 30.

The CCG 5901, also the world’s largest coast guard vessel, was still in the area on Tuesday, according to ship tracker Marine Traffic.

Past track of China’s CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard vessel, from Dec. 29-Jan. 17, 2022. Credit: MarineTraffic

‘There are no problems’

An unnamed Chinese embassy official told Indonesian media outlet Tempo.co the Chinese ship was in the area “under Chinese jurisdiction, according to international law.”

A U.N. tribunal in 2016 invalidated the “nine-dash line” but Beijing has so far rejected the ruling, insisting that China has jurisdiction over all areas within the line.

"It's for the purpose of maritime security and order," the official was quoted as saying.

In response, Adm. Muhammad Ali told RFA-affiliated news service BenarNews Tuesday “we have at least three to four warships in Natuna on the ready and one marine patrol aircraft.”

Ali added the Indonesian Air Force’s drones would also be deployed “for joint patrols in the North Natuna Sea.”

“There are no problems,” the Navy Chief reiterated.

Satya Pratama, a senior Indonesian government official and a former captain at Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency Bakamla, said the presence of warships in the area is “not abnormal.”

“The Indonesian Navy regularly patrols the area so I don’t think the fact that the ships are there alone will escalate the tension,” Pratama told RFA.

“It happened before. It is just parties sending messages,” he said, adding that “nobody would want additional tension in the area” where the Indonesian government has just passed an oil and gas development plan.

Earlier this month, Indonesia’s Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Task Force (SKK Migas) approved the plan to develop the Tuna oil and gas field, also known as the Tuna Block, in the North Natuna area.

The Tuna Block lies entirely inside Indonesia’s EEZ and just 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the border of the Vietnamese EEZ but the area is frequented by Chinese law enforcement and fishing vessels.

Vietnam’s concerns

Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia have all accused China of disrupting their oil and gas exploration activities with frequent incursions by Chinese coast guard and maritime militia ships, leading to confrontations.

Vietnamese analysts said the deployment of the CCG 5901, dubbed the “monster” vessel and armed with heavy machine guns, may be China’s response to the Vietnam-Indonesia maritime limitation agreement.

Le Hong Hiep, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said the Chinese coast guard ship’s operating area is “very close to the supposed boundary between Vietnam and Indonesia,” and it is an indication of China’s protest.

Viet Hoang, another well-known Vietnamese analyst and university lecturer, said he fears this may signal a “prolonged stand-off in the area.”

“China will not let it [the Vietnam-Indonesia agreement] go easily,” he said.

In 2021, Chinese survey ships and coast guard vessels loitered uninvited for almost a month in the North Natuna area, where Indonesia’s oil and gas exploration was underway.

Vanguard Bank is located within Vietnam’s EEZ. Credit: Google Maps

Van Pham, who runs an independent research project focusing on the South China Sea, points to another area of Vietnam’s concerns – the Vanguard Bank.

The bank is an entirely submerged feature that hosts three Vietnamese outposts, located within Vietnam’s EEZ and about 400 kilometers (249 miles) from Indonesia’s Riau Island, north of the Natuna Sea.

“Chinese coast guard ships are known to be present at a very regular frequency around the Vanguard Bank, from where they monitor and from time to time harass Vietnam’s oil exploration activities nearby,” said the chief administrator of the South China Sea Chronicle Initiative.

The Vanguard Bank is a known South China Sea flashpoint between Vietnam and China.

In July 2019, a Chinese Coast Guard contingent accompanied a Chinese survey vessel operating within Vietnam’s waters around the bank, causing diplomatic outcry and a tense, months-long standoff between the Vietnamese and Chinese coastguards.

Tria Dianti in Jakarta contributed to the report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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

China’s coast guard patrols site of Indonesian gas field

By BenarNews and RFA Staff — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 08:12:00 +0000

The China Coast Guard’s leading ship has been patrolling the waters around Indonesia’s Natuna islands in the South China Sea just as Jakarta approves a plan to develop an offshore gas field there, ship tracking data shows.

CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard vessel, has been in the area since Dec. 30, according to the ship tracker Marine Traffic.

Earlier this week, the Indonesian government passed the first development plan for the Tuna Block, which is located within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but also inside the so-called “nine-dash line” that China uses to claim historical rights over most of the South China Sea.

Last month, Vietnam and Indonesia concluded talks on the boundaries of their EEZs, a move likely to irk China as the two countries’ claims also lie within the “nine-dash line.”

Chinese coast guard vessels have been patrolling the area to back “Beijing’s ridiculous claims in the South China Sea,” said Satya Pratama, a senior Indonesian government official and a former Bakamla (Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency) captain.

But the presence of the CCG 5901, dubbed “the monster” for its size and tonnage, may signal a step up in China’s assertiveness.

Past track of Chinese CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard vessel, on Dec. 29-Jan. 4, 2022. Credit: MarineTraffic

Multi-billion-dollar investment

Indonesia’s Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Task Force (SKK Migas) has approved the plan to develop the Tuna oil and gas field, also known as the Tuna Block, an official confirmed to RFA affiliate BenarNews.

SKK Migas spokesman Muhammad Kemal said the plan involves an investment of nearly U.S.$3 billion up to the start of production.

Indonesia began drilling exploration wells in the field some 10 years ago, Kemal said, adding that it is expected to achieve a “peak production of 115 million standard cubic feet [3.3 million cubic meters] per day in 2027.”

The field is operated by a local unit of Harbor Energy, the largest London-listed independent oil and gas company.

Natural gas from the Tuna field is planned to be exported to Vietnam starting 2026 and may bring an income of US$ 1.24 billion a year, the spokesman told BenarNews.

China has so far not protested through official channels against the Tuna Block development plan but SKK Migas chairman Dwi Soetjipto said in a statement that there will be activities “in the border area which is one of the world’s geopolitical hot spots.”

Reuters quoted Soetjipto as saying that the Indonesian Navy would “participate in securing the upstream oil and gas project” which can be seen as “an affirmation of Indonesia’s sovereignty.”

The Tuna Block lies entirely inside Indonesia’s EEZ and just 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the border of the Vietnamese EEZ but the area is frequented by Chinese law enforcement and fishing vessels.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visits a military base at Natuna, Indonesia, near the South China Sea, Jan. 9, 2020. Credit: Antara Foto/via Reuters

‘Monster’ vessel

A U.N. tribunal in 2016 invalidated the “nine-dash line” but Beijing has so far rejected the ruling, insisting that China has jurisdiction over all areas within the line.

In 2021, Chinese survey ships and coast guard vessels loitered uninvited for almost a month in the North Natuna area, where Indonesia’s oil and gas exploration was underway.

Since the latest developments, “Chinese coast guard vessels' presence here will either be at the same frequency, or even increase,” said Jakarta-based Satya Pratama.

The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 left Sanya port in Hainan island on Dec. 16 and arrived in Indonesia’s EEZ on Dec. 30 after showing up at Vanguard Bank, a known South China Sea flashpoint between Vietnam and China.

The coast guard ship, armed with heavy machine guns, also has a helicopter platform and a hangar large enough to accommodate larger rotary wing aircraft.

By tonnage, the CCG 5901 is double the size of a U.S. Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser and is also bigger than an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer.

Roy Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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

Censorship Prohibits Spreading Truths and Demands Spreading Lies

Eric Zuesse — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 21:59:31 +0000

When U.S. President George W. Bush, on 7 September 2002, said that the IAEA had just come out with a “new report” concluding that Saddam Hussein was only six months away from having a nuclear weapon, and the IAEA three times denied it, the President’s allegation grew into, and became the basis for, America’s ‘justification’ to invade Iraq on 20 March 2003, while the IAEA’s denial was hidden by the ‘news’-media — censored-out by them all (except for only one tiny and unclear news-story that only one small news-medium published three weeks later and few people even noticed — and which news-report didn’t even so much as just mention that it had related to the U.S. President’s allegation, much less that it disproved that allegation: that America’s President had lied his country into — deceived his own public into supporting — that invasion).

This is an example of censorship to require lies, and to prohibit truths. And that is what censorship is generally intended to do. An author can write or say truths, but if no one will publish it, what good is it? What good is such ‘freedom of the press’? What good was it? (The IAEA knew.) None, at all (except for the international corporations that profited from America’s takeover of Iraq, and that served them by publishing those clients’ propaganda as ‘news’, such as in “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”).

I specialize in documenting such censorship to enforce lies and prohibit truths, but I find that the public isn’t much concerned about this problem; most people simply assume it doesn’t even exist, and that if any censorship does exist, it is to prohibit lies instead of truths (the exact opposite of what it really is). They are thus doubly deceived. On December 27th, Russia’s RT headlined “Every social media firm censors for US government”, documenting that claim with links to the sources, and noting that it pertains to at least Twitter, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Reddit, and Pinterest, and that it’s controlled by collusion between those corporations and the Government in order to hide truths — including partisan political truths — so as to pump up the public’s support for current Governmental policies, to continue those policies by continuing those leaders in office. It’s essential to retaining the regime.

This censorship is so normal in America so that on 24 November 2016, the Washington Post headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say”, and it reported that a

group, called PropOrNot, a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds, planned to release its own findings Friday showing the startling reach and effectiveness of Russian propaganda campaigns. (Update: The report came out on Saturday).

The researchers used Internet analytics tools to trace the origins of particular tweets and mapped the connections among social-media accounts that consistently delivered synchronized messages. Identifying website codes sometimes revealed common ownership. In other cases, exact phrases or sentences were echoed by sites and social-media accounts in rapid succession, signaling membership in connected networks controlled by a single entity.

PropOrNot’s monitoring report, which was provided to The Washington Post in advance of its public release, identifies more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans. On Facebook, PropOrNot estimates that stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign were viewed more than 213 million times.

It wasn’t “nonpartisan,” and it was, instead, censorship to enforce lies — not to prohibit them — and that ‘news’paper was praising it by spreading its lies about itself (i.e., that the WP wasn’t itself one of the top spreaders of “fake ‘news’” — which, like all mainstream (and many non-mainstream) ‘news’-peddlers, it was and is). In fact: many of the “more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda” were publishing more truths and less lies than such mainstream ‘news’-media as the WP itself was and does. But that’s an unpublishable truth, because it’s a truth that exposes themselves to be precisely what they condemn.

If you want to be censored-out from America’s mainstream — and from most of America’s non-mainstream — ‘news’ media, just prove that they are fraudulent; that’ll do it, every time.

There was no accountability for either Bush’s, or his ‘news’-media’s, lying America into invading and occupying Iraq — providing knowingly false ‘justifications’ for that (in order to do it ‘democratically’ — with support by the majority of voters). However, to expose, such lying, gets a journalist censored-out 100% (in this anything-but-democratic country).

On 5 February 2003, U.S. SecState Colin Powell addressed the U.N. Security Council urging its authorization to invade (which didn’t come). He said that Saddam’s Government was hiding crucial information, and “Some of the material is classified and related to Iraq’s nuclear program. Tell me, answer me, are the inspectors to search the house of every government official, every Baath Party member and every scientist in the country to find the truth, to get the information they need, to satisfy the demands of our council?” The next day, all major U.S. newspapers editorialized that, as the Washington Post headlined “Irrefutable”, saying that, “Whether Iraq is disarmed through the authority of the United Nations or whether the United States effectively assumes responsibility depends on how the Security Council responds.” In other words: this issue was to stand as a test not of the U.S., but of the U.N. And definitely not of the ‘news’-media, at all. On 22 March 2019, the WP’s “Fact Checker” columnist issued a 2,000+word retrospective, “The Iraq War and WMDs: An intelligence failure or White House spin?” which concluded “It’s too fuzzy for the Pinocchio Test [“True” vs. “False”], as it also falls in the realm of opinion [supposedly meaning statements that are neither true nor false but ONLY about what the person wants others to believe — and that statement about “opinion” is itself FALSE]”; and, so, he was alleging, both the “Bush administration” and its intelligence agencies had failed (even though both actually succeeded because they — with the assistance of the Washington Post and others — had deceived the public). His lengthy column 100% avoided any reference to the IAEA — whose Bush-alleged but non-existent “new report” had gotten the regime’s PR campaign to invade Iraq started. Nobody (certainly no U.S. ‘news’-medium) even noticed that the IAEA as the alleged source of the nuclear allegation had somehow mysteriously disappeared (much less wondered why it disappeared in the press, and from the Government). Colin Powell’s speech made no mention of the IAEA. There was constant hiding of the fact that America’s President had lied in order to start the allegation as having originated from the IAEA (the U.N.-authorized investigation-agency on nuclear matters — and Powell was addressing the U.N.). The media hid his lies, and their own lies, to back up the U.S. president’s lies. And (unlike on issues that are politically partisan in the U.S.) this was unanimous lying, by the U.S.-and-allied press.

I shall here cite my own personal experience to explain why I think that the public (which is so deceived as to be largely supportive of censorship) should be very much concerned about this (censorship), if they care at all about democracy. The incident in which the invasion of Iraq resulted from censorship is what had caused me, in 2002, to focus upon this problem, because it made clear to me that I was living under a dictatorship. I hadn’t previously been certain of this subsequently proven fact about America. So: that incident was a turning-point for me. A second such turning-point for me was the start in 2014 of the war in Ukraine:

Back in or around 2014, 43 international-news media were publishing my articles, and some of them were mainstream liberal media, some were mainstream conservative, and others were libertarian, but the vast majority were non-mainstream. When Barack Obama in February 2014 perpetrated a coup in Ukraine that installed a rabidly anti-Russian government there on Russia’s border and that was instead ‘reported’ as-if it had been a ‘democratic revolution’, which coup-imposed regime perpetrated a massacre against its pro-Russian protestors inside the Trade Unions Building in Odessa on 2 May 2014 (see especially the charred bodies of its victims at 1:50:00- in that video), I started writing about Ukraine; and, then, those 43 international-news sites gradually whittled themselves down to only 7; and, yet, none of them ever alleged that anything in any of my articles was false and asked me to prove it true, but they were instead getting pressure from Google, and from the FBI, and from other Establishment U.S. entities, and were afraid of being forced out of business (which many of them ultimately were) by them. The personal narrative that will now be provided here is about the latest of these cases, which threatens the site Modern Diplomacy, which had been an excellent international-affairs news site and included writers from all across the international-affairs news spectrum, for and against every Government’s policies, and from practically every angle. I had long been expecting MD (because of its impartiality) to receive a warning from the U.S. regime, and this finally happened late in December 2022, when the site’s founder, D., sent me this notice:

Dear Eric, do you know who are these guys? https://www.newsguardtech.com/ratings/rating-process-criteria/

They sent me an email with allegations mentioning your articles as false claims and MD as a pro-kremlin propaganda website due to these.

Do they have any influence on Search engines and social media? Will we have any problems at all?

Thanks

I replied with an email

Subject: Since you are a co-founder,

Date: Dec 24, 2022 at 9:20 AM

To: moc.hcetdraugswennull@llirb.nevets

Cc: [D.]

I ask you please to explain to me, and to the webmaster at moderndiplomacy.eu, why your organization — well, here is what he sent me about what your organization did:

[I pasted in D.’s message to me.]

As you can see there, he is afraid (that’s a weak version of terrorized) that your organization will downgrade his site because of his site’s posting some of my articles.

It seems to me that there are two reasonable types of responses that you can give him and me:

Either you will cite falsehoods in one or more of my articles at his site

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/author/ericzuesse/

(but, of course, you could also do that regarding any edition of the New York Times or Washington Post; so, why would that be a reason?), or else:

You could search to find such falsehoods, find none, ask your employee why he or she is terrorizing that webmaster and (essentially) indirectly threatening me; and, if that employee fails to provide a reasonable and entirely true answer, which justifies what he or she has done, fire that person and inform the rest of your staff that you have done so and explain to all of them WHY you fired the employee, so that they all can then know to STOP DOING THIS!!!

Sincerely,

Eric Zuesse

Brill didn’t respond. So, I sent to D.:

I take my not having received a reply from either Steven Brill or you to be an ominous sign, because, suddenly, none of my recent articles has been posted by your site. Would you please explain? (If you are cancelling me as an author, I shall remove your site from my submissions-list.) After all, you said “They sent me an email with allegations mentioning your articles as false claims and MD as a pro-kremlin propaganda website due to these.” Did they state what those “false claims” were? Did you ask them? I very much doubt that they were able to find anything in any of my articles that is false. No one has ever before, to my knowledge, alleged any assertion in any of my articles to be false. I don’t ever make a claim that is false. I am EXCEEDINGLY careful. And any assertion in any of my articles that I think some readers MIGHT find questionable I provide a link to its documentation. So, I would distrust that allegation from Brill’s organization and consider it to be likely a lie from them in order to censor out from the news-media information that the U.S. regime wishes the public not to know. Would you not want to know whether that allegation from them was merely an excuse to censor out from your site information that they don’t want the public to know?

D. responded:

Dear Eric,

Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for your efforts in contacting newsguard, although I was surprised to see that you used my message I sent you in your contact email without my consent. Now they know I took it seriously. Anyway, I decided to stop publishing your articles — at least for a while and see how it goes. Part of my decision was of course the threats (not only from them) but also the fact that you are spreading them to a lot of websites and that google considers it as “scraped content”. I will try to stay in exclusive content although I appreciate your work and your courage.

I worked really hard these 10 years for MD and still can’t monetize it to support the expenses and me of course. Also I am tired and I am thinking about the possibility to find a buyer and stand back. Just keep it in mind, in case you find someone interested in it.

Of course we can stay in touch and keep sending me your articles — at least to have the opportunity to read them.

Below, you will find newsguard allegations concerning your articles. Please don’t use it to reply to them — we both know that there is no use. Instead, maybe you can write a new piece debunking them.

Kind Regards

Here is what he had received from News Guard, and which I shall here debunk [between brackets]:

We found that Modern Diplomacy articles often link to sites rated as unreliable by NewsGuard for promoting false information, such as OrientalReview.org, pro-Kremlin site TheDuran.com, and en.interaffairs.ru <http://en.interaffairs.ru> , owned by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The site has also republished articles from sites such as The Gray Zone, rated unfavorably by NewsGuard for repeatedly publishing false claims about the Russia-Ukraine war and Syrian chemical attacks. Could you comment on why Modern Diplomacy republishes or links to sites which consistently promote false claims?

[Rating allegations as “true” or as “false” ON THE BASIS OF the identity of the SITE instead of on the basis of the specific allegation in the specific article (or video) is a standard method of deception of the public, which censors employ to distract and manipulate individuals (readers, etc.) by appealing to their existing prejudices such as (for an American conservative or Republican) “Don’t trust the N.Y. Times” or (for an American liberal or Democrat) “Don’t trust the N.Y. Post” (or, for both, “Russia is bad and wrong, and America is good and right”). It is appealing to prejudices and emotions, instead of to facts and evidence — it is NOT appealing to actual truth and falsity. It is a method of deception.]

We also found that ModernDiplomacy.eu has repeatedly published false and misleading claims about the Russia-Ukraine war.

For example, a June 2022 article titled “Have Europeans been profoundly deceived?,” claims to provide evidence that “A coup occurred in Ukraine during February 2014 under the cover of pro-EU demonstrations that the U.S. Government had been organizing ever since at least June 2011.”

[The word “coup” in that article was linked to this video, every detail of which I have carefully checked and verified to include ONLY evidence that is authentic — and no one has contested any of the evidence in it. The first item of evidence that is referred-to in this video is at 0:35, which item is the audio of a private phone-conversation between two top EU officials in which one, who was in Kiev while the coup was occurring, reported to his boss, who wanted to know whether it was a revolution or instead a coup, and he reported to her that it was a coup, and described to her the evidence, which convinced her. My article later says “Here is that phone-conversation, and here is its transcript along with explanations (to enable understanding of what he was telling her, and of what her response to it indicated — that though it was a disappointment to her, she wouldn’t let the fact that it had been a coup affect EU policies).” This news-reporting is of real evidence, not distractions, not any appeal to the reader’s (and listener’s) prejudices, either. But Mr. Brill’s employee apparently didn’t check my article’s sources (gave no indication of having clicked onto any of my links), because he or she was judging on the basis purely of that person’s own prejudices — NOT upon the basis of any evidence. Then, at 3:35 in that video, is audio of another private phone-conversation, which was of Obama’s planner of the coup, Victoria Nuland, telling his Ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, whom to get appointed to run the stooge-regime after the coup will be over, “Yats” Yatsenyuk, which then was done. My article also says “Here is that phone-conversation, and here is its transcript along with explanations (to enable understanding of whom she was referring to in it, and why).” The reference to “June 2011” had appeared in this passage from a prior article of mine, where that two-word phrase linked to Julian Assange’s personal account of the matter — the Obama Administration’s early planning-stage for the coup in Ukraine — that explains how those “pro-EU demonstrations” had been engineered by Obama’s agents. So: everything in that paragraph by Brill’s employee was fully documented in my links — which that person didn’t care to check.]

However, there is no evidence that the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine that led to the ouster of then-president Viktor Yanukovych was a coup orchestrated by the United States. … Angry protesters demanded Yanukovych’s immediate resignation, and hundreds of police officers guarding government buildings abandoned their posts. Yanukovych fled the same day the agreement was signed, and protesters took control of several government buildings the next day. The Ukrainian parliament then voted 328-0 to remove Yanukovych from office and scheduled early presidential elections the following May, the BBC reported. These events, often collectively referred to as the “Maidan revolution,” were extensively covered by international media organizations with correspondents in Ukraine, including the BBC, the Associated Press, and The New York Times.

Could you please comment on why Modern Diplomacy repeated this false claim, despite evidence to the contrary?

A March 2022 article titled “Who actually CAUSED this war in Ukraine?” states that “Russia had done everything it could to avoid needing to invade Ukraine in order to disempower the nazis who have been running the country ever since Obama’s 2014 coup placed it into the hands of rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascists there.”

In fact, Nazis are not running Ukraine. … Svoboda won 2.2 percent of the vote. Svoboda currently holds one parliamentary seat.

In February 2022, U.S. news site the Jewish Journal published a statement signed by 300 scholars of the Holocaust, Nazism and World War II, which said that “the equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime” is “factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it.” Additionally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, addressed the Russian public in a Feb. 24, 2022, speech, saying that these claims do not reflect the “real” Ukraine. “You are told we are Nazis. But could people who lost more than 8 million lives in the battle against Nazism support Nazism?”

Could you please comment on why Modern Diplomacy repeated this false claim [that “the nazis who have been running the country ever since Obama’s 2014 coup placed it into the hands of rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascists there”], despite evidence to the contrary?

[Yet again, Mr. Brill’s employee simply ignores my evidence — fails even to click onto my links whenever he disagrees with an allegation that has a link. Here was my published assertion, as it was published: “Russia had done everything it could to avoid needing to invade Ukraine in order to disempower the nazis who have been running the country ever since Obama’s 2014 coup placed it into the hands of rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascists there.” The evidence is right there, just a click away, but Mr. Brill’s employee again wasn’t interested in seeing the evidence. (Nor is Brill himself.)]

An April 2022 article titled “Authentic War-Reporting From Ukraine,” promotes a video report by pro-Kremlin journalist, Patrick Lancaster, filmed in the Eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The article asserts that Ukraine was “constantly shelling into that region in order to kill and/or compell to flee anybody who lived in that region […] It was an ethnic cleansing in order to get rid of enough of those residents so that, if ever that area would again become integrated into Ukraine and its remaining residents would therefore be voting again in Ukrainian national elections, the U.S.-installed nazi Ukrainian regime will ‘democratically’ be able to continue to rule in Ukraine.” (The article also repeats the claim that the 2014 revolution was a US-backed coup, and makes the unverified claim that “The CIA has instructed all of Ukraine’s nazis (or racist-fascists) to suppress their anti-Semitism and White Supremacy until after Ukraine has become admitted into NATO.”)

The claim that Ukraine conducted an “ethnic cleansing” in the Donbas echoes a falsehood propagated by the Russian government for years. There is no evidence supporting the claim that genocide occurred in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas. The International Criminal Court, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe have all said they have found no evidence of genocide in Donbas. The U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe called the genocide claim a “reprehensible falsehood” in a Feb. 16, 2022 post on its official Twitter account. It said that the mission “has complete access to the government-controlled areas of Ukraine and HAS NEVER reported anything remotely resembling Russia’s claims.”

Could you please comment on why Modern Diplomacy repeated this false claim, despite evidence to the contrary?

[Yet again, Mr. Brill’s employee relies upon people’s opinions — but ONLY ones who agree with his — instead of any evidence at all. Here, on behalf of myself, and of Modern Diplomacy, and of Patrick Lancaster (INSTEAD OF on behalf of Lockheed Martin and the other U.S.-and-allied international-corporate entities that are profiting from this war), are nine news-reports linking to actual evidence which disproves those opinions:

“Mortar shelling in Kramatorsk. Nazis attacking city district.” 18 May 2014

“Ukraine crisis: ‘Those fascists killed this girl and they will be in hell’” 5 May 2014

“Ukraine Crisis: Kiev’s Slovyansk ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ Kills 300 Pro-Russian Separatists” 4 June 2014

“Luhansk. After Air Strike. Part 4 (of 6)” 2 June 2014

“AP’s Matt Lee challenges White House’s lies on Ukraine” 7 July 2014

“Obama Definitely Caused the Malaysian Airliner to Be Downed” 18 July 2014

“How Our People Do Their Extermination-Jobs In Ukraine” 23 October 2014

“What Obama’s Ukrainian Stooges Did” 10 October 2014

“Brookings Wants More Villages Firebombed in Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’” 3 February 2015]

My final reply to D.’s final rejection of my position was:

As regards myself, I am with Chris Hedges (who quit the N.Y. Times over this) and with Consortium News (which is standing up against the same pressure that you are caving to), in order to have any hope that the future might possibly be better than the present.

At the same time when News Guard was threatening Modern Diplomacy and perhaps forcing that site to reject all future submissions from me, the news-site, Consortium News, was likewise being threatened by Brill’s shills. On December 29th, Consortium News headlined “On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine: A short history of neo-Nazism in Ukraine in response to NewsGuard’s charge that Consortium News published false content about its extent”. That, too, is an excellent example of censors killing truths and leaving only lies. However, mega-corporate America has a number of such ‘fact-checking’ truth-destroying organizations: New Guard is only one of them.

These self-styled truth-policemen of the Web represent the regime, and came into being after the Web itself did. The Web enabled — for the first time in history — articles to be published and read that link to their sources, and this opened up a new possibility and reality, in which the online readers could actually evaluate ON THEIR OWN (by clicking onto such links) the evidence. That upset the billionaires’ applecarts of ‘authoritative opinion’ (which they have hired) so that authoritarianism (which they control) could become replaced by facts (which they can’t).

The least reliable means of forming or even of changing one’s opinions are means such as ink-on-paper allegations (newspapers, magazines, etc.) that cannot even POSSIBLY provide immediate direct online links to the items of evidence; and the MOST reliable means are online articles and books (such as my new one, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL, whose ebook versions do document allegations by means of such online links — it’s the first-ever book to do so) which constantly bring directly to one’s computer or other Web-online device the items of evidence whenever the reader has any doubt about a given allegation’s veracity or not. That way the individual can form one’s opinion on the basis only of the evidence.

Anyone whose opinions are based upon the opinions of other people who believe as that person does, instead of on the basis of purely the facts of the matter and of ONE’S OWN investigations seeking out evidence both for and evidence against any alleged fact, will simply believe the myths that one already believes, and will only become more and more convinced of those falsehoods, as one grows older.

The function of censorship is to prohibit spreading truths. It poisons democracy, to death. Censors kill democracies. That’s what they are being paid to do. And they do it.

The post Censorship Prohibits Spreading Truths and Demands Spreading Lies first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.

China steps up Coast Guard patrols near Japanese islands

By RFA Staff — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 06:12:51 +0000

Chinese vessels have intensified activities around Japan this week, sending a clear message of deterrence after Tokyo designated Beijing an unprecedented “strategic challenge” in its latest National Security Strategy.

On Dec. 16 Japan unveiled three major defense-related documents, which named China as a main challenge to security and stability in the region and called for boosting Japan’s “counter-strike capabilities.”

The Chinese Coast Guard said on WeChat that its ships patrolled “in the Chinese territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu islands on Wednesday,” using the Chinese name for the Senkaku islands which are under Japan’s control but are also claimed by China.

Territorial waters are the areas within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of island coasts.

Japan has yet to respond but Tokyo has repeatedly accused Beijing of violating its sovereignty over the Senkaku islands.

A ship-borne J-15 fighter jet prepares to land on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Liaoning during exercises in the South China Sea. CREDIT: Chinese PLA Navy

Meanwhile the Japanese Ministry of Defense Joint Staff said in a press release on Wednesday that the aircraft carrier Liaoning of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and escorting warships have been conducting drills in the West Pacific since Dec. 16.

Between Saturday and Tuesday, the Liaoning hosted about 130 aircraft sorties while operating around Okidaito island and Kitadaito island south of Japan, it said.

The Liaoning carrier group consists of two Type 055 large missile destroyers and a number of other vessels.

“The Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Liaoning of the Chinese Navy was confirmed to have made approximately 130 take-offs and landings during this period, including approximately 60 by fighter aircraft and 70 by helicopters,” the press release stated.

This was more than twice the intensity of the exercises held in the same region in May by the Liaoning carrier group.

The Liaoning hosted more than 300 fighter jet and helicopter sorties in 20 days in the far sea exercises in the West Pacific in May, putting Japanese defense forces on high alert.

"We will conduct surveillance activities with a strong sense of tension," then Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi was quoted as saying.

The exercise area of the Chinese carrier is close to the southwestern Nansei islands between Japan and Taiwan.

The Nansei (Ryukyu) islands are located southwest of Japan, near Taiwan. CREDIT: Google Maps

Simulating attacks on Nansei islands

Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted anonymous Chinese government sources as saying on Thursday that the drills conducted by the Liaoning carrier strike group were to “simulate attacks on Japan’s Nansei islands.”

The Nansei (Ryukyu) islands are an island chain stretching southwest from the Japanese prefectures of Kagoshima and Okinawa toward Taiwan.

The westernmost tip lies just 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the self-ruled island of Taiwan that Beijing considers a breakaway Chinese province and vows to reunite with the mainland.

“Chinese President Xi Jinping is said to have instructed the military to start the drills” upon Japan’s launch of three security documents, the Yomiuri quoted the Chinese sources as saying.

The carrier strike group usually holds annual winter exercises around December but this year, Xi designated a start date “to undermine Japan’s security strategy against China,” the sources said.

According to the Yomiuri’s Chinese sources, the PLA would conduct “long-range strike drills from waters in the western Pacific, simulating missile launches targeting islands in the Nansei chain.”

The Liaoning and other vessels in the strike group are currently some 450 kilometers (280 miles) east-northeast of Kitadaito island, from where carrier-borne aircraft could reach the Nansei islands in less than ten minutes.

Chinese strategic bombers “will also simulate a pincer attack on Taiwan from the east and west during the drills,” which are expected to end on Dec. 26, according to the sources.

Japan’s new defense strategy, in an apparent shift from the country’s pacifist doctrine, stated that Japan would need to acquire more “counter strike” capabilities, especially long-range land- and sea-launched missiles.

Tokyo has already deployed a large number of missiles on Nansei islands and plans to further beef up defenses in preparation for a Taiwan Strait crisis.

The Japanese defense ministry wants to expand fuel and ammunition storage facilities, as well as bolster missile and electronic warfare capacity on the Nansei Islands, according to Japan’s 2022 defense white paper.

Kyodo news agency reported in December 2021 that Japan's Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. Army had drafted a joint operation plan that would enable an 'attack base' to be established in the Nansei island chain, the timeframe of which remains unclear.

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

Philippine Coast Guard recovers wreckage from another Chinese space rocket

BenarNews staff — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 23:48:30 +0000

The Philippine Coast Guard says it has recovered suspected debris in Manila-claimed waters from the launch of another Chinese space rocket.

Last month, Manila accused the China Coast Guard of forcibly confiscating similar rocket debris salvaged by a Philippine coast guard ship. The newest debris was found on Saturday in South China Sea waters off the western province of Zambales, according to the local coast guard (PCG).

“The recovered metal and plastic debris measures two meters long and four meters wide and is believed to be from a Long March 5b Rocket that was launched by China … 31 October 2022 from Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan Province,” the coast guard said in a statement Sunday.

A Filipino boat captain identified as David Gervacio, skipper of the Akiyo, had radioed the coast guard to report “a white cylindrical shaped object, believed to be rocket debris that was floating in waters” west of Zambales, coast guard officials said.

The coast guard on Saturday reminded coastal villages and local fishermen that “floating debris at sea are navigational hazards and may endanger the safety of vessels and its crew.”

The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not comment when contacted by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

Last month, Gervacio had also radioed in when he spotted similar rocket debris some 38 nautical miles southwest of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed territory in the South China Sea. That wreckage was not recovered because of its size and because it was believed to be under water.

Also in November, the Philippine military accused China of blocking a local navy ship and confiscating rocket debris recovered by the Filipinos near Pag-asa (Thitu), a Manila-occupied island in the Spratlys chain.

That incident occurred as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, during a visit to the Philippines, reiterated that Washington was backing Manila in its territorial dispute with China.

Last week, Manila sent a letter to Beijing protesting the Chinese Coast Guard’s actions.

“[T]he DFA has undertaken appropriate diplomatic action to protest and make known our view on the illegal actions of the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) on Nov. 20, 2022,” Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teresa Daza said in a statement on Friday.

China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to areas of the waterway that overlap Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone as well.

Since taking office in June, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has repeatedly stated that his government would assert a 2016 international arbitration court ruling, which Manila won and that invalidated China’s vast claims to the sea region.

Beijing has ignored the ruling.

The foreign affairs department said it had sent 193 diplomatic protests against China this year alone, including 65 of them since Marcos came to power.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the military’s Western Command (Wescom), based on Palawan island, said it had successfully completed another resupply mission to BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated vessel that serves as the Philippine outpost in Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) in the South China Sea.

Several China militia vessels roaming in the vicinity had challenged and shadowed the Philippine supply boat, the military said.

“The Chinese radio challenges would claim that the sea area near the Philippine ship is ‘under the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China,’ that they are allowing supplies to be delivered, and warned that bringing construction materials will be dealt with,” Wescom said in a statement.

These radio challenges would always be followed by CCG’s shadowing and close maneuvers against Philippine supply boats to try to disrupt the mission, it added.

The Philippine supply boats, on the other hand, would respond and proceed to their planned destination, Wescom said.

Aie Balagtas See in Manila, and Jeoffrey Maitem in Davao City, southern Philippines, contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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

Justice for Kevin Torres, father and soccer coach killed by security guard

The Real News Network — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 17:43:15 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

PNG police put national exams under guard over cheating fears

APR editor — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 03:58:21 +0000

By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

For the first time in the life of school exams in Papua New Guinea, police will monitor the national grades 8, 10 and 12 exams over the next three weeks.

The engagement of the police is to provide security for invigilators (teachers who supervise exams) and to crack down on cheating and bribery.

Education Minister Jimmy Uguro announced the extraordinary intervention, saying that more than 200,000 students were expected to sit for the exams cross the country.

READ MORE: Other PNG education reports

Several policemen from the Special Services Division (SSD) are now travelling into several provinces around the country — including Morobe, Madang, Eastern Highlands, Southern Highlands and Hela — as they assist the invigilators and other Education officials to carry out their duties during the three weeks of examinations.

In recent years, PNG has experienced an unprecedented rise in cheating scandals from several schools across the country and as such the inclusion of police is a way to deter such activities from being carried out.

Uguro said that cheating during the examinations would not be tolerated with students warned to be mindful as they sat for the exams.

“While we do not wish to include police officers in such activities, the safety of the invigilators and education staff is of paramount importance. People will do anything to ensure their child goes into university, however we want it to be done the right way and not through bribery and cheating,” he said.

Western Highlands cheating
The warning comes after several schools in Western Highlands in 2019 saw more than 400 students not certified because of cheating.

And several more schools in the years that have followed have seen students cheating in schools across the country.

All of the students in the three grades have been warned to not cheat during the examination with the National Education Board implementing strict rules while students are sitting for the exams.

Uguro said that while he wished the students the best of luck in their examinations, he wanted all them to know that cheating would not be tolerated and there would be severe consequences for such actions being taken by any student.

“If anyone is found to be cheating, they will be severely penalised and cheating is an attitude that is unfair, and cannot be allowed to continue,” he said.

“Those found to be cheating on any of the days for the three grades will be banned from continuing the exams, and we will be reporting any illegal activities and practices found to be carried out during the examination processes.”

Uguro said the warning was not only for the students but for the teachers and other help around the schools who were assisting with cheating.

Cheats ‘will not be certified’
“They will be dealt with by police,” he added. “If you are found cheating, the only penalty we will give is you are not going to be certified. No student and school will be certified if they are caught cheating.”

Teachers would be terminated and would never teach again, said Minister Uguro.

If teachers had been found to have assisted in cheating and bribery, they would also face not teaching again he reiterated.

For the students, those found to be cheating would be referred to the National Education Board (NEB) and appropriate action would be taken, Uguro said.

Minister Uguro also took the time to wish the students the best of luck and urged them to do their best.

“I want to wish all students the best in the exams today and I challenge them to do their best for themselves and their families and for the country.”

200,000 students start exams
Today the 200,000 students from more than 3000 schools in the country will sit for the papers with the Grade 10s commencing the start of examination.

The examination will conclude on Friday.

On October 17 the Grade 12s start their exams and end on Friday, October 21.

The third and final week will see grade 8s commence their exams on Monday, October 24, and end on Friday, October 27.

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

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

China Cost Guard conducts latest of dozens of patrols near Senkakus

By RFA Staff — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 13:54:17 +0000

A Chinese coast guard fleet conducted a patrol near the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Friday, the latest of more than two dozen forays into disputed waters this year at a time of high regional tensions over missile launches from North Korea.

The patrols came as Pyongyang has been firing ballistic missiles into the waters off the Korean Peninsula in the last two weeks. On Tuesday a missile launched over Japan prompted the U.S. to call an emergency meeting at the U.N. Security Council and to hold a trilateral ballistic missile defense exercise with allies Japan and South Korea.

“China Coast Guard 2301 fleet conducts a patrol in territorial waters off the Diaoyu Islands on Oct. 7, 2022,” the Chinese Coast Guard announced on its Weibo account, referring to the island group by its Chinese name.

The announcement came just over a week after three Chinese coast guard vessels spent more than eight hours in the waters off the disputed islands. The Japanese-controlled islands are also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands.

Chinese ships have been spotted entering the area that both countries call their own territorial waters 28 times this year.

Japan has yet to respond to the latest Chinese incursion, but in the previous incident on Sept. 28, Tokyo dispatched patrol vessels to chase off the Chinese ships and “lodged a stern protest with Beijing over the intrusion, which violated international law.”

Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki told reporters at that time that Beijing's action was "extremely regrettable and totally unacceptable.”

The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard’s ship Alex Haley transfers custody of a detained Chinese fishing vessel to China Coast Guard patrol vessel 2301 in the Sea of Japan, June 21, 2018. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard

Changing status quo

Despite repeated protests from Tokyo, Chinese ships have been conducting regular patrols near the islands.

The same fleet led by coast guard vessel 2301 carried out a similar patrol early June this year.

The Japanese government bought most of the Senkakus from a private owner ten years ago. Since then, “China has been using this as an excuse to send the Coast Guard and other agencies’ ships into Japan’s contiguous zone almost every day except for stormy weather days, and these ships intrude into Japanese territorial waters several times a month,” said the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“China Coast Guard ships persistently continue unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion in the waters around the Senkaku Islands,” said the ministry.

“This includes approaching Japanese fishing vessels inside Japanese territorial waters and intrusions by ships mounted with artillery,” it added.

Before the government’s purchase of Senkakus in 2012, Chinese ships almost never entered Japan’s territorial waters near the islands, according to the Japan Coast Guard.

The Senkaku Islands are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea northeast of Taiwan that Japan has administered since 1895.

On Thursday, Japan, the U.S. and South Korea held a trilateral ballistic missile defense exercise in the waters between Korea and Japan, following North Korea’s ballistic missile launch over Japan on Oct. 4, according to a statement from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

The three allies also staged a trilateral anti-submarine exercise for the first time in five years on Sept. 30.

Pyongyang has carried out six missile launches in less than two weeks as “countermeasures” to U.S.-led military drills in the region.

The U.S. and South Korea responded with missile launches and drills around the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday and Wednesday, without Japan.

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

Interview: Chinese workers held by armed guard, denied wages, forced into overtime

By Kai Di for RFA Mandarin — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 18:29:56 +0000

In 2021, Chinese migrant worker Zhang Qiang signed onto a Belt and Road project in Indonesia, drawn by what he believed would be higher wages than he could make at home.

Happily married for nine years, with two daughters, Zhang promised his youngest that he would buy her a princess-style bed for her bedroom with the extra money, then left his hometown of Anyang city, in the central province of Henan to take the job.

"At that time, I had just put a downpayment on a home in China, and taken out a mortgage," Zhang, 32, told RFA. "My youngest told me that, when we were settled in the new place that she wanted a princess bed."

"I told her yes. I said I would definitely get her one when I have earned this money overseas," he said.

"[I told her] I was introduced by a friend, and was going to Indonesia to work for six months at 500 yuan (U.S. $72) a day. After working that ... I can come back to China."

Zhang signed up for the job with Rongcheng Environmental Protection, alongside more than 20 other workers recruited at the same time, but the company said the contract-signing would have to wait, citing COVID-19 restrictions in Nanjing at the time, and the lack of access to a printer.

"They found an excuse after I got to Nanjing why we couldn't sign the contract ... then, after a week of quarantine, we flew out to Indonesia," he said.

The reality was far from what he had been promised.

On arrival in Indonesia, Zhang's passport was taken from him, and he was pressured to sign a contract for lower wages than advertised, locking him in for a longer time than had been promised.

"As soon as we got off the plane, they arranged for us to take a COVID-19 test, and then they had us throw our passports into a box," Zhang said.

Zhang's group was taken to work on the Delong Industrial Park project on Sulawesi, part of a Chinese-invested nickel-mining project under the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

"They had told us before we left that we'd be working nine hours a day," he said. "Once we got there, that became nine-and-a-half hours, as well as overtime in the evenings."

"They would dock your wages if you refused to do overtime."

Once inside the migrant workers' camp, Zhang also found that escape was no easy matter, as the place was patrolled by armed guards.

"You basically couldn't leave the site, and they had security guards with guns guarding it," Zhang said. "There were people with guns at the dormitory area too."

There were other "changes" made to the terms of the contract, too.

"They said it would be for six months, but the boss told us we wouldn't be going home in six months," he said. "Before we left, they told us we'd have to leave a month's wages as a deposit, and that the rest of our wages would be paid monthly, as normal."

"Once we got there, they didn't give us any money in the first month, and after that, they just handed out 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,450) for living expenses," Zhang said. "The rest of our wages would have to wait until several months after we'd gone home."

Two undated photos show the conditions workers faced at the Delong Industrial Park project on Sulawesi, Indonesia. Credit: Zhang Qiang

Brutal work conditions

Once work was under way, Zhang and the other workers were denied breaks and forced to work nonstop in high temperatures doing physically grueling labor. Stopping for a rest or a cigarette would also result in docked wages. They started to hear reports of frequent worker suicides at the site.

In desperation, Zhang and some of the relatives of other workers at the site appealed to the Chinese embassy in Jakarta for help. But the call only resulted in a backlash for the workers from their gang boss.

"The lower-ranking boss [Lu Jun] came to us and said ... have you been watching too many movies? Trying to complain isn't going to work here," Zhang said.

When the contracts finally appeared, they stipulated monthly living expenses of 1,000 yuan (US. $145), with the full wages only paid six months after the workers' return to China.

"It was one of those overlord contracts, so we didn't sign it," Zhang said.

The workers insisted on going back to China, whereupon they were told that they would have to stump up 75,000 yuan (U.S. $10,830) each. After a period of stalemate, even that offer was withdrawn.

When asked to comment by RFA, Lu Jun said the workers were in breach of contract.

"Originally the deal was that they would work for a year, but two months after they got here, they said they wanted to go back to China," Lu said. "They would have to pay the cost of that themselves."

"So then five of them ran away before they'd paid what they owed me."

But the five workers weren't out of the woods yet. They managed to find another gang boss, Liu Peiming, and paid him 250,000 yuan (U.S. $36,100) after he said he would have them home within a week.

But he secretly arranged to have them sent to Phase II of the Delong project instead.

"We kept telling them that we wanted to go home, but he didn't care any more, and just said there was no way we were getting home for 50,000 yuan (U.S. $7,220) [apiece], and that he'd need another 20,000 to 30,000 yuan (U.S. $2,890 to $4,330)," Zhang said.

Eventually, Zhang and his colleagues got the story out via the media, and higher-ups and Delong got involved.

"We have said they should first refund the 250,000 yuan to us and give us back our passports, because this is illegal detention," Zhang said.

Liu eventually did return the money, but Delong still has their passports.

Repeated attempts to contact Liu Peiming's assistant and Delong for comment had resulted in no reply by the time of writing.

Undated photos show the conditions workers faced at the Delong Industrial Park project in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Credit: Zhang Qiang

Smuggled to Malaysia

Eventually, the group fell in with the proprietor of the Peony Hotel near Phase II, who promised to smuggle them into Malaysia, for which they had to pay 13,000 yuan (U.S. $1,875) each.

"We had to take an eight- or nine-meter (26- or 29-foot) speedboat used for fishing and make a two-hour crossing at sea, making us jump down when the water was shallow enough to stand in," Zhang said. "As soon as we reached the Malaysian border, the coastguard caught us."

The Peony Hotel's proprietor denied taking money from the group when contacted by RFA.

"I recommended an interpreter who could arrange for people to go that route, and put them in touch so they could sort it out between them," she said. "I also recommended someone in Jakarta who could change their money."

"Don't come asking me about it; I never made money out of it."

Zhang and his four companions eventually made it home to Henan in February 2022 after being deported by the Malaysian authorities.

They are now heavily in debt, leaving him with no choice but to get straight back to work again.

"I wanted to sue them, but there were various debts hanging over me when I got back, so I went back to work," he said. "Life is so stressful."

Zhang now works as a courier, and feels he had a relatively lucky escape.

"These sites are completely closed off ... which puts you under a very intense kind of psychological pressure," Zhang said. "Two people committed suicide during our two months at Phase III, and I read about several more online after I got home, too."

Since 2010, an estimated 10 million Chinese nationals have taken jobs overseas, with 570,000 believed to still be working overseas as of the end of May 2022, according to the New York-based rights group China Labor Watch.

Many travel or tourism or business visas and work without a contract, however, meaning that the true figure may be far higher. Even where contracts do exist, breaches of their terms are very common, the group said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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

Vietnam cracks down on Coast Guard oil smuggling ring

By RFA Vietnamese — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 06:32:48 +0000

The wife of a former Coast Guard regional commander has been prosecuted for accepting bribes for her husband’s role in smuggling oil from Singapore to Vietnam.

The indictment from the Central Military Procuracy accused Phan Thi Xuan, wife of former commander of the 3rd Coast Guard Region Maj. Le Xuan Thanh, of receiving the equivalent of U.S.$80,000 from gasoline smuggler Phan Thanh Huu in 11 installments, state media said on Monday.

On Tuesday the military court of Military Zone 7 was set to open a first-instance court hearing, to hear charges of smuggling, accepting bribes, and helping those involved flee abroad.

The defendants include Le Van Minh, former commander of the Vietnam Coast Guard’s Fourth Region and former Third Region commander Le Xuan Thanh

Others facing prosecution include Maj. Luu Duc The, former deputy head of Reconnaissance 2 at Coast Guard Command; Col. Nguyen The Anh, former commander of the Border Guard of Kien Giang Province; and Col. Pham Van Tren, former commander of the Border Guard of Tra Vinh province. All have been charged with accepting bribes.

Col. Nguyen The Anh and one other person have also been charged with helping people flee Vietnam.

Col. Phung Danh Thoai, former Head of the Petroleum Department’s Logistics Department at the Coast Guard Command was charged with smuggling.

The charges date from between March 2020 and Feb. 2021 when the director of Phan Le Hoang Anh Trading, Phan Thanh Huu, and his accomplices smuggled about 200 million liters of gasoline, worth about U.S.$130 million, into Vietnam.

Col. Phung Danh Thoai is said to have helped finance the operation and share in its profits to the tune of U.S.$941,000.

Former commander Le Van Minh was accused of abusing his position and power to receive U.S.$295,000 paid by Phan Thanh Huu to his wife and children.

Investigations into all the defendants recovered more than $1.5 million. The former commanders of Coast Guard Region 3 and Coast Guard Region 4 returned all the money they are accused of receiving.

The Procuracy of Dong Nai province also recently cracked down on oil smugglers, issuing an indictment against Phan Thanh Huu and 72 accomplices. It prosecuted Cpt. Ngo Van Thuy of the Team 3 Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department of the General Department of Customs for taking bribes.

The case dates back to Sept. 2019 when Phan Thanh Huu and Ocean Hai Phong Director Dao Ngoc Vien conspired to smuggle petroleum from Singapore to Vietnam. Col. Phung Dah Thoai and his accomplices are said to have contributed $2.3 million to finance the operation.

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

WHO Chief Warns Humanity Lowers Guard Against Covid-19 ‘At Our Peril’

Andrea Germanos — Mon, 23 May 2022 13:32:30 +0000

The head of the World Health Organization said Sunday that the Covid-19 pandemic is "most certainly not over" as he urged continued vigilance against the virus blamed for as many as 15 million excess deaths worldwide.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' remarks were delivered in Geneva where global delegates gathered for the annual meeting of the World Health Assembly—the health agency's decision-making body.

Tedros repeated his frequent excoriations of Covid-19 vaccine and technology inequality and warnings against prematurely dropping key public health measures meant to contain the virus.

"In many countries, all restrictions have been lifted, and life looks much like it did before the pandemic," he said, framing such moves as ill-advised when the pandemic still has its grips on the globe and new variants and sub-variants continue to emerge.

While welcoming progress on combating the pandemic, including getting over 60% of the world’s population vaccinated, he stressed that "it's not over anywhere until it's over everywhere."

Former Vietnamese coast guard leadership charged with embezzlement

By RFA’s Vietnamese Service — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 19:52:18 +0000

Authorities in Vietnam have arrested seven coast guard officers, including the former commander and the top Communist Party leader, for allegedly embezzling the military branch’s funds in the country’s latest high-profile corruption case, media reports said.

In mid-April arrests announced on Monday included former coast guard commander of the, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Son, and the former political commissar, Lt. Gen. Hoang Van Dong.

Both men had previously been confined to their homes after being dismissed from the coast guard and all other party positions in October 2021 during a review of the coast guard’s Vietnamese Communist Party leadership

The review found that between 2015 and 2020 the leadership “lacked responsibility, leadership, direction, examination and monitoring.” It reported serious violations in financial management, the procurement of technical equipment, and the prevention and control of smuggling.

Also charged with embezzlement after being dismissed after the review were the former deputy commander and chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Pham Kim Hau; the former deputy commander, Maj. Gen. Bui Trung Dung; the former deputy political commissar, Maj. Gen. Doan Bao Quyet; and the former deputy commander, Full Col. Nguyen Van Hung; and the deputy head of the Finance Department, Sen. Col. Bui Van Hoe.

The Vietnamese Coast Guard is a young force. It was established in 1998 but has grown rapidly.

Amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, Vietnam has prioritized maritime security, and the Vietnamese navy and coastguard have received large investments from the government budget. However, observers say that big money and the lack of transparency has led to rampant corruption in the system.

The sacking of the coast guard generals could serve as a warning signal for authorities to tighten control over government funds invested in law enforcement, analysts say.

The Ministry of Defense’s Criminal Investigation Agency, meanwhile, has been conducting another investigation related to oil and gas management violations. The agency has prosecuted 14 people for taking bribes, including Maj. Gen. Le Xuan Thanh and Maj. Gen. Le Van Minh.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

Coast guard reports more Filipino fishermen in disputed Chinese-controlled shoal

Jojo Riñoza and Jeoffrey Maitem for BenarNews — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 20:24:52 +0000

The Philippine Coast Guard said Friday it had seen more Filipino fishermen operating off a rich fishing ground in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, describing this as a “significant milestone” because China has effectively controlled South China Sea waters in that area for the past decade.

A patrol ship had monitored around 45 Filipino fishing boats in the Scarborough Shoal between Feb. 25 and March 5 – the highest number observed since 2012, when China took control of the area – according to Adm. Artemio Abu, the coast guard commandant.

In a statement, the coast guard confirmed “the increasing presence of Filipino fishermen” in the area and said that it had also kept watch and provided the Filipino fishermen with relief supplies.

“Seeing more Filipino fishing boats in Bajo de Masinloc is a proof of our intensified efforts to safeguard Filipino fishermen who consider fishing as their primary source of livelihood,” Abu said using the Filipino name for Scarborough Shoal, a triangular shaped rocky outcrop.

“Through our regular interaction, we assure them that the PCG [Philippine Coast Guard] will remain active and present in the area. We always assure them that we are here to protect their welfare and promote their safety),” Abu added.

Meanwhile, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) stressed the need to encourage Filipino fishermen to catch fish in the traditional fishing grounds. The Philippine name for the South China Sea is the West Philippine Sea.

In 2012, the Philippine Coast Guard engaged Chinese ships in a stand-off over the Scarborough Shoal. China reneged on a deal to leave the region, and its ships stayed put.

A year later, Manila filed a case against Beijing over the issue. In a landmark verdict in 2016, the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines and threw out China’s expansive territorial claims in the sea region.

However, Beijing has ignored the ruling and has since maintained a presence in the shoal.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who came to power in 2016 just weeks after the ruling, has pursued appeasement with China instead of working to enforce the court’s decision, agreeing to put the issue on the back burner until only recently. He will be leaving office after the Philippine general election in May.

Still, South China Sea observers say that China has been continuing with its expansionism in the maritime region.

In June 2019, a Chinese vessel rammed a Filipino fishing boat in Reed Bank, another region in the South China Sea that lies within the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The Chinese crew left 22 Philippine fishermen stranded at sea until a passing Vietnamese boat rescued them.

Last month, a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) reconnaissance ship was said to have been chased out of Philippine waters near the Sulu Sea. Beijing insisted it was an “innocent passage” guaranteed under an international convention on the law of the seas.

Opposition lawmakers have sought a congressional inquiry into the recent incursion by the PLAN vessel.

“The repeated and unwanted incursions of Chinese vessels into Philippine territory not only raises serious concerns, but flagrant violations of the country’s national sovereignty and security,” said a joint statement by leftist lawmakers Carlos Isagani Zarate, Eufemia Cullamat, and Ferdinand Gaite.

“These acts brazenly disregard Philippine authority over its territory, thus these should be condemned and investigated,” the lawmakers said.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea as its own, but five other Asian governments – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam – have territorial claims in the disputed waterway.

While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of the sea overlapping Indonesia’s EEZ.

Separately on Friday, Rear Adm. Jeffrey Anderson, commander of aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, referred to the Philippines and other Asian allies when he said that the U.S. Navy’s presence in the South China Sea demonstrates “our commitment to the region as we continue to protect our collective interests, enhance our security and safeguard our shared values.”

Anderson commented days before treaty allies Washington and Manila are set to hold their largest joint military training exercise since 2016, involving nearly 9,000 troops that will focus on training in maritime security, amphibious operations, live-fire, and counterterrorism exercises.

The 37th Balikatan, which means shoulder-to-shoulder in Tagalog, begins on March 28 and ends on April 8 at training sites in Luzon, the Philippines’ main island.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jojo Riñoza and Jeoffrey Maitem for BenarNews.

Vietnamese residents of Ukraine caught off guard by Russian invasion

Radio Free Asia — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 00:36:56 +0000

Thousands of Vietnamese people living in Ukraine were caught off guard by the Russian military’s invasion last week after their ambassador downplayed the likelihood of conflict between the countries.

According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, around 7,000 Vietnamese lived in Ukraine before war broke out on Feb. 24, just one month after Hanoi and Kyiv celebrated 30 years of diplomatic relations.

Prior to the invasion, Ambassador Nguyen Hong Thach assured Vietnamese citizens that the embassy was closely monitoring the situation and that war between the two former Soviet Republics would not occur, a Vietnamese citizen living in Kharkiv, close to the Russian border, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on condition of anonymity.

As a result, most of the Vietnamese were not prepared to evacuate and remained in Ukraine when the Russian forces struck, he said.

“Bombs were exploding very close to our place shaking us from head to toe,” said the source, whose family has been living in Ukraine for decades. “The Vietnamese government’s efforts to protect its citizens here are really slow and ineffective.”

The source said the community learned of Vietnam’s plan to use the country’s major airlines to evacuate citizens from Ukraine from state-media, not the embassy.

“It’s a plan we saw in newspapers only. In reality, we haven’t received anything from the embassy,” he said. “In fact, there are no commitments on providing transportation for us... The embassy hasn’t made any decisions or commitments to evacuate us from Ukraine.”

Even if rescue flights were to be organized, the source said he is doubtful that his family would be able to secure seats, likening the situation to Hanoi’s attempt last year to evacuate Vietnamese during severe COVID outbreaks.

“The most important thing would be whether we can win a place on a flight or not. In the recent COVID scare, most of Vietnamese in Kharkiv could not return to Vietnam without paying a fortune,” the source said.

“A ticket on a commercial flight often costs US $1,000, but we would have had to pay up to $6,000 for a ticket on a rescue flight. At present, we have no hope at all of being evacuated on flights,” he said.

The family instead may flee west to Poland over land, a plan the source said he is also hesitant about.

“I want to see first how it goes for the Vietnamese who have already left for Poland, how things are there, and whether they are becoming victims of robbing and looting along the way. I have to watch first as robberies often occur in situations like this,” he said.

“If it is not safe, we’ll have no choice but to shelter here. My friends evacuated in four separate cars. We are still in contact with two of the cars but lost contact with the other two, so we are extremely worried,” the Kharkiv man said.

Others who have signed up for repatriation do not know where they should go to be picked up, Nguyen Khiem, another Vietnamese in Ukraine, told RFA.

"We have signed up, but how about a pick-up point? And how dangerous is it to get there? Really, in this situation we really can't know how dangerous it will be until we’re there,” Khiem said.

“We're also thinking that if we should go to Poland, it is 1,200 km [745 miles] from us. All we can do over here is to listen to those of our brothers and sisters who have made the journey already and are familiar with what could happen," Khiem said.

"I myself never thought Russia would attack Ukraine. We were unprepared. The guidance from the Vietnamese government is just there for us to be aware, so we will actually have to fend for ourselves,” Khiem said.

RFA attempted to contact the Vietnamese Embassy in Ukraine many times but was unsuccessful.

Westward escape

Since the Feb. 24 invasion, more than 1 million people have fled Ukraine for neighboring countries, and many of Ukraine’s Vietnamese population were among them.

Vietnamese communities in countries like Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic have offered food, financial assistance, transportation and housing to Vietnamese fleeing Ukraine.

Facebook has become a key platform for connecting the communities, sources said.

“Members of the Vietnamese community here in Poland are trying to do whatever we can to help,” Phan Chau Thanh, a Vietnamese businessman there, told RFA. “Whoever has a house will offer accommodation. Whoever has a car and time will offer pick-ups."

“In general, a lot of people in the community have chipped in. Specifically, out of around 25,000 Vietnamese people in Poland, around 7,000 to 8,000 have already participated in this campaign,” he said.

Thanh himself is managing assistance activities at one of the border gates between the two countries.

In Romania, it isn’t just the Vietnamese community that is helping its own, a Vietnamese Bucharest resident identified only as Hai told RFA.

“All of Romania is also willing to provide assistance to Vietnamese or other people coming from Ukraine. You can contact any member of the Vietnamese community in Romania and get our maximum support,” she said.

“If you need to stay somewhere for a couple of days, we can help find a place or offer free accommodation if necessary. Right now, many have come, and spare accommodation is no longer available, but the community is renting budget rooms at hotels or local residences for Vietnamese people from Ukraine to take refuge,” she said.

The Czech Republic does not border Ukraine, but Vietnamese there are collecting donations and relief goods and reaching out to refugees on social media to help.

Julie Phan said she has offered a place in her home to any Vietnamese who needs a place to stay.

“I did not have to think about it much. I know that wars create a lot of suffering. I burst into tears when I saw the footage of kids in bomb shelters. Here I am living in peace, and these kids … many people have lost their lives and families were separated,” she said. “I felt so sorry for them.”

“We were deeply struck by the images of Ukrainians and Vietnamese standing in a 30-kilometer queue near the border with Poland and in a freezing weather to get a seal or permission to enter Poland. Therefore, we thought we must call for assistance for them,” Phan said.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that as of midday Thursday, almost all the Vietnamese citizens in Kyiv and Odessa had fled and hundreds of others in Kharkiv had been evacuated from war zones.

The ministry also said that about 400 people had arrived in Moldova and were on their way to Romania. Another 140 people had arrived in Poland, 70 in Romania, 33 in Slovakia and 30 in Hungary.

On Thursday, 141 of the 193 members of the United Nations voted in favor of a motion demanding the immediate end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Four countries, North Korea, Belarus, Eritrea, and Syria voted against the resolution alongside Russia, while 12 others, including Vietnam and Laos, abstained from the vote.

Nataliya Zhynkina, Ukraine’s Chargé d’Affairs in Vietnam, voiced her displeasure in a Facebook post written in Vietnamese.

“Among all the ASEAN countries, only Vietnam and Laos abstained. Vietnam, my second homeland, I am very disappointed.”

Translated by Chau Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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

Pentagon delayed sending National Guard to pro-Trump insurrection at capitol; House Democrats poised to pass sweeping voting rights law; California Democrats propose bill to seal criminal records after 2 years of no convictions

KPFA — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 18:00:00 +0000

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

Democrats acquiesce to moderate and Republican demands to limit $1,400 pandemic relief payment.
Party line tie vote of HHS Secretary nominee, Xavier Becerra, California Attorney General.
House Democrats poised to pass For the People Act to protect and expand voting rights.
Senate testimony: Pentagon limited and delayed National Guard’s deployment during pro-Trump insurrection at capitol.
Federal authorities warn of right wing attack March 4th at capitol to inaugurate Donald Trump.
California Senate Democrats propose bill to seal criminal records after 2 years of no convictions.
California snowpack much lower than average, on pace for another critically dry year.

Photo of March on Washington, 1963. By Unseen Histories on Unsplash.

The post Pentagon delayed sending National Guard to pro-Trump insurrection at capitol; House Democrats poised to pass sweeping voting rights law; California Democrats propose bill to seal criminal records after 2 years of no convictions appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Global coronavirus cases spike as New York calls in the National Guard and California reports 2nd death – March 10, 2020

KPFA — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 18:00:00 +0000

New York Governor calls in National Guard to address coronavirus outbreak in New York suburb.
Italy’s coronavirus cases top 10,000 as nation uses military and police to enforce travel bans.
CDC says medical facilities and nursing homes need to do more to prevent COVID-19 spread.
Trump administration outlines coronavirus response, pushes for payroll tax cut.
San Francisco Supervisors announce economic legislative package to redress coronavirus impacts.
California Governor hints Trump administration not doing enough to stop virus spread.
Democratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders cancel events amidst virus threat.
Joe Biden wins big in 6 state Democratic presidential primary, beating back Sanders.
KPFA and Pacifica vote on bylaws changes.
Santa Clara County records second coronavirus death, suspends large public gatherings.

The post Global coronavirus cases spike as New York calls in the National Guard and California reports 2nd death – March 10, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.