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Junta troops have burned more than five dozen civilians to death since the end of December in three regions of Myanmar where they have encountered heavy armed resistance to military rule, sources in the regions said Wednesday.
Residents told RFA’s Myanmar Service that at least 65 people had been set on fire and killed in the 10 weeks leading to March 7, in Kayah state’s Hpruso and Demoso townships and Magway region’s Gangaw township.
In the Sagaing region, troops burned 10 people to death in Salingyi township, four in Ye-U township, three in Kalay township, and five in Myinmu township, they said.
A Chinese military aircraft crashed in the South China Sea earlier this month, Taiwan said Thursday, providing a possible explanation for China’s closure of a part of the Gulf of Tonkin near Hainan island. Chen Ming-tong, director general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, told the country’s Parliament that the crash prompted China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) to set up a navigation exclusion zone in the adjacent waters to carry out search-and-rescue.
He also warned that as the world is focused on the war in Ukraine, China is taking advantage of the situation to "test the limits of the U.S. and other South China Sea claimants." On March 4, the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration issued a navigation warning banning ships from entering an area in the Gulf of Tonkin that was closed for military drills until March 15.
Part of the area lies within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry protested, asking China to respect its EEZ and continental shelf. China’s Foreign Ministry replied, saying that "it is reasonable, lawful and irreproachable for China to conduct military exercises on its own doorstep.”
The U.S. should strengthen defense relationships in the Indo-Pacific in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a potential similar one involving China and Taiwan, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith said Wednesday.
“The entire world is a challenge with Russia’s unprovoked and devastating invasion of Ukraine,” Smith said in a congressional hearing. “We have been reminded that we can’t just focus on one part of the world, but the Indo-Pacific region is clearly one of the most important regions in the world.” Smith noted that China is the country most capable of competing with the U.S. in terms of economic and military strength.
A summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) slated for the end of this month has been postponed, Cambodia's foreign minister said on Wednesday, citing that some ASEAN leaders will not be be able to attend.
Biden had invited leaders of the 10-member bloc to Washington, D.C. for a March summit. On Monday Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose country is currently chairing ASEAN, said at least three leaders wanted to reschedule the meeting. There were no immediate comments on the summit from the White House or from Indonesia, which is the coordinator of the summit, and other members of ASEAN.
Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, drawing swift condemnation from a shocked world after repeated denials from Moscow that it had any such plans.
RFA is tracking the impact of the war on Asian countries, while sister agencies Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America cover events in Ukraine and its neighbors.
You can read all of our coverage here:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/u030222/russia-war-on-ukraine.html
Human rights groups called on the U.N. human rights chief to issue an overdue report on serious rights violations by Chinese authorities targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in Xinjiang, a day after she announced that she would visit China and the turbulent region in May.
“The release of the report without further delay is essential — to send a message to victims and perpetrators alike that no state, no matter how powerful, is above international law or the robust independent scrutiny of your Office,” said their open letter to Bachelet. They noted that her office still had not issued the report, despite Bachelet saying in September 2021 that they were finalizing an assessment of available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in Xinjiang “with a view to making it public.”
Thailand has agreed in principle to buy more electricity from Laos after signing an agreement that expands energy cooperation between the two Mekong River neighbors. Laos has staked its future on power generation in a controversial bid to become “The Battery of Southeast Asia,” exporting electricity from more than 50 large and small-scale dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries.
“The next step will be…to negotiate prices and a power purchase agreement directly with the buyer, Thailand,” one Lao energy official said. Thai environmental advocacy groups criticized the agreement, saying that it would promote more degradation of the Mekong River’s ecology and impact riparian communities
Australia plans to build a new submarine base on the east coast of the country to support its new nuclear-powered submarines, the Australian prime minister said. Last September, the Australian government announced a plan to acquire at least eight nuclear submarines as part of the newly-established trilateral security arrangement between Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. (AUKUS). At that time, China criticized the AUKUS deal, describing it as "extremely irresponsible" and “intensifying the arms race."
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a joint statement with Minister of Defense Peter Dutton late on Monday that the future east coast submarine base “would enhance Australia’s strategic deterrent capability in the Pacific Ocean.” The Australian government has identified three locations for the new submarine base on the east coast: Brisbane, Newcastle, and Port Kembla.
Two trains traveling on the new China-Laos high-speed railway experienced lengthy and unexpected weather delays this week in Laos, with one train taking eight hours to travel between the historic town of Luang Prabang and the capital Vientiane, about five times longer than usual, passengers said.
The Lao section of the railway handles an average of two trains each way daily, covering 254 miles and 10 passenger rail stations from Boten on the Chinese border to the Lao capital. The two trains on Monday were slow and experienced several delays, stopping for one to two hours at different spots during a journey that normally takes one hour and 40 minutes, passengers said.“The cause was the storm and the heavy rain that technically overwhelmed the capacity of the train,” one train attendant said. “We have to stop to see if there is any danger or risk when it’s raining hard.”
“We arrived at the capital at 9:30 p.m.,” one traveler said. “There was no food, and passengers were not allowed to get off. Nothing was available, no food, no water. The train got stuck for too long, and we were hungry.” He said he didn’t want compensation for the delay, but rather an explanation and an improvement in service. “The train should have water or snacks for sale,” he said.
