Microsoft announced a commitment to equip 2.5 million people in member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with AI skills by 2025. The skilling initiatives will be implemented in partnership with governments, nonprofit and corporate organizations, and communities across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Microsoft’s commitment aligns with the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025 to build an AI-ready talent pool in the region. It is also part of the company’s broader goal to empower individuals, organizations, and communities in ASEAN countries to harness the potential of AI to drive innovation and economic growth.
Dr Piti Srisangnam, Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation, said: “We appreciate Microsoft’s commitment to upskilling ASEAN youth in AI, a pivotal step aligning with the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025. By fostering a sustainable digital talent ecosystem, it will contribute significantly to our regional development.”
Microsoft’s skilling commitment will focus on four areas: building an inclusive, AI-ready workforce; bridging the cybersecurity talent gap; enhancing developers’ AI skills; and empowering nonprofit organizations to maximize their social impact.
These initiatives will build on Microsoft’s long history of helping to close the digital skills gap in ASEAN countries. Over the past two years, around 1.7 million people have participated in its Skills4Jobs program.
“What’s truly exciting is the innovation mindset already prevalent in ASEAN. Investing in AI skills is investing in a future where economic growth is inclusive, giving every person a chance to contribute and benefit. With a robust pool of talent skilled in disruptive technologies, ASEAN is well positioned for the global tech race,” said Andrea Della Mattea, President of ASEAN at Microsoft.
Building an inclusive, AI-ready workforce
The digital age demands skilled workers, and vocational institutes will be critical in providing practical training for industry-aligned needs and roles. Microsoft will help strengthen vocational education systems across the ASEAN region to provide AI skills in partnership with the ASEAN Foundation and education ministries in the 10 member states, which will benefit an estimated 644,000 vocational students.
In the Philippines, Microsoft is committed to equipping 1 million Department of Education learners from kindergarten to grade 12 with AI and cybersecurity skills, ensuring their readiness for future careers and employment opportunities. Furthermore, Microsoft will strengthen its collaboration with the nation’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) by investing in a new initiative to equip 100,000 TESDA female learners with AI and cybersecurity skills. This will help foster a diverse talent pipeline for the country’s digital transformation.
Through the AI TEACH for Indonesia and AI TEACH Malaysia programs, Microsoft and the ASEAN Foundation will provide technical and vocational education and training students with AI skills. Microsoft is also training and educating 100,000 underserved youths and job seekers in AI, data, and security through its existing partnership with Kartu Prakerja, the largest pre-employment program in Indonesia.
In addition, Microsoft is launching the AI Skills for the AI-enabled Tourism Industry program in partnership with Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Ministry of Labour, and the nation’s Technology Vocational Education Training Institute. The initiative will skill 100,000 young entrepreneurs involved in tourism businesses across minor-tier geographic provinces in all five regions of Thailand.
Microsoft will also expand its partnership with the United Nations Development Programme Asia Pacific in Indonesia to Malaysia and Vietnam, helping 570,000 youth from underserved communities enhance their employability and work readiness through access to AI fluency skills.
Helping bridge the cybersecurity talent gap
The Asia-Pacific region is experiencing the largest skills gap in its cybersecurity workforce globally, with a shortfall of 2.7 million people in 2023. At the same time, AI-powered security capabilities are becoming a necessity in the fight against modern-day cyber threats.
As part of its global Cybersecurity Skilling Initiative, Microsoft has designed and curated training programs with nonprofit organizations to help create alternative pathways for underrepresented youths into the cybersecurity industry.
Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella announces a USD1.7 billion investment to advance new cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia during the Microsoft Build: AI Day on April 30, 2024 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Photo by Annice Lyn/Getty Images for Microsoft)
Microsoft’s Ready4AI&Security program will train 15,000 young individuals in Indonesia and Malaysia, focusing on providing opportunities for women to build cybersecurity careers. This will include access to Microsoft’s Security training and certifications.
Enhancing developers’ AI skills to foster innovation
To support the ASEAN region’s 7 million-strong developer community, Microsoft has launched the Asia AI Odyssey campaign, which highlights how Microsoft’s AI Applied Skills validate the specific technical competencies required to build transformative AI applications. The campaign is running across Asia and aims to train 30,000 developers in ASEAN countries, encouraging greater use of AI services in the digital economy.
Empowering nonprofit organizations to maximize their social impact
In June 2024, Microsoft will host its first Nonprofit Leaders’ Summit to equip 1,500 nonprofit employees with knowledge and skills in AI and digital technologies.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers have called for a “Myanmar-owned and led solution” to the crisis in Myanmar that began when the military seized power in a coup three years ago, and has left thousands dead.
The call from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) followed a meeting on Monday of the 10-member grouping’s foreign ministers in Laos, which was attended by an official from Myanmar for the first time in two years.
The ministers also gave their backing to efforts by Alounkeo Kittikhoun, Laos’s special envoy on the crisis, in “reaching out to parties concerned”.
Myanmar was plunged into crisis when the generals removed the elected government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, 2021, and seized power, responding with brutal force to mass protests against its rule and sparking an armed uprising.
More than 4,400 civilians have been killed since and the military is holding nearly 20,000 people in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a local monitoring group.
ASEAN, which Myanmar joined in 1997, has been leading international diplomatic efforts on Myanmar but has made little progress since unveiling the so-called five-point consensus to end the crisis at a summit attended by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing shortly after the power grab.
The generals have ignored the plan and have been banned from attending ASEAN’s summits and ministerial meetings.
Laos, a one-party communist state on Myanmar’s northeastern border, is chairing ASEAN this year.
Kittikhoun travelled to Myanmar earlier this month where he met Min Aung Hlaing and the two discussed “efforts of the government to ensure peace and stability”, according to Myanmar’s state media. Neither ASEAN nor Laos have commented on the trip and it is unclear whether he met any anti-coup groups.
The conflict has deepened since an alliance of anti-coup forces and ethnic armed groups began a major offensive towards the end of last year in northern Shan State and western Rakhine.
The alliance claims to have overrun dozens of military outposts and taken control of key towns.
More than 2.6 million people have been forced from their homes over three years of fighting.
The military government has shown no willingness to open talks with its opponents and describes them as “terrorists”. It has also accused ASEAN of interfering in its internal affairs.
Laos stresses engagement
The ASEAN statement did not elaborate on whether the “Myanmar-owned and led solution” would involve discussions with the National Unity Government, the administration established by elected politicians who were removed in the coup as well as supporters of democracy in the wake of the power grab.
The military sent Marlar Than Htike, the ASEAN’s permanent secretary at the Foreign Ministry, to the meeting in Laos, accepting for the first time ASEAN’s invitation for it to send a “non-political” representative to meetings.
Laos’s Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith welcomed Myanmar’s attendance.
“This time we feel a little bit optimistic that the engagement may work, although we have to admit that the issues that are happening in Myanmar will not resolve overnight,” he said.
“We are sure that the more we engage Myanmar, the more understanding … about the real situation that is happening in Myanmar.”
The crisis has caused friction within ASEAN with some members pushing for a firmer line with the military and engagement with the NUG.
A spokesman from Indonesia, which chaired the grouping last year, insisted Monday’s attendance was not a sign that policy had changed.
“It is true that a Myanmar representative was present at the ASEAN FM meeting in Luang Prabang. The attendance was not by a minister-level or political representative. So, it is still in line with the 2022 agreement of the ASEAN leaders,” Lalu Muhamad Iqbal told the AFP news agency.
Laos’s Foreign Minister Kommasith told reporters that Thailand would provide more humanitarian assistance to Myanmar.
“We think humanitarian assistance is the priority for the immediate period of time when implementing the five-point consensus,” he said, referring to the April 2021 consensus.
The plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos have a combined population of nearly 650 million people and a total gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $3 trillion.
Laos is the group’s poorest nation and one of its smallest.
It has close ties to China with which it also shares a border.
TAIPEI, July 13 (Reuters) – Chinese fighter jets monitored a U.S. Navy patrol plane that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Thursday, as China carried out a third day of military exercises to the south of the island Beijing views as China’s sovereign territory.
China has been incensed by U.S. military missions through the narrow strait, most frequently of warships but occasionally of aircraft, saying China “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the waterway. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying it is an international waterway.
The U.S. Navy’s 7th fleet said the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane, which is also used for anti-submarine missions, flew through the strait in international airspace.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military described the flight as “public hype”, adding it sent fighters to monitor and warn the U.S. plane.
“Troops in the theatre are always on high alert and will resolutely defend national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement on its WeChat account.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said Chinese warplanes and warships carried out a third day of exercises to the island’s south on Thursday, and that it detected 26 aircraft including advanced Chinese J-16 and Su-30 fighters flying out to sea and “responding to” the U.S. Poseidon.
The ministry said the U.S. aircraft had stuck to the strait’s median line and flew in a southerly direction on Thursday morning, and that Taiwan’s forces kept watch.
The median line normally serves as an unofficial barrier between Taiwan and China.
However, since last August when China held large-scale war games around Taiwan, Chinese military aircraft have been frequently crossing the line, though generally quite briefly.
China’s latest drills near Taiwan have involved fighters, bombers and warships, with the aircraft mainly flying to the island’s south and out into the Pacific through the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, according to maps provided by Taiwan’s defence ministry.
China has not commented on the exercises, which have taken place less than two weeks before Taiwan stages its own annual drills and as NATO alliance leaders said China challenges its interests, security and values with its “ambitions and coercive policies”.
Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson and Emma Rumney
HANOI, July 3 (Reuters) – Vietnam has banned Warner Bros’ highly-anticipated film “Barbie” from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media reported on Monday.
The U-shaped “nine-dash line” is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.
“Barbie” is the latest movie to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated in an international arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016. China refuses to recognise the ruling.
In 2019 the Vietnamese government pulled DreamWorks’ animated film “Abominable” and last year it banned Sony’s action movie “Unchartered” for the same reason. Netflix also removed an Australian spy drama “Pine Gap” in 2021.
[1/2]Actor Margot Robbie is photographed during a photocall for the upcoming Warner Bros. film “Barbie” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake
“Barbie”, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was originally slated to open in Vietnam on July 21, the same date as in the United States, according to state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.
“We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” the paper reported, citing Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films.
Warner Bros did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vietnam and China have long had overlapping territorial claims to a potentially energy-rich stretch in the South China Sea. The Southeast Asian country has repeatedly accused Chinese vessels of violating its sovereignty.
Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor
HANOI, June 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan will stop at Central Vietnam’s port city of Danang on Sunday in a rare visit for a U.S. warship to the southeast Asian nation, as tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea remain high.
The ship will arrive on Sunday afternoon and stay at Danang until June 30, local media reported the spokesperson for Vietnam’s foreign affairs ministry as saying. The spokesperson did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The visit of the USS Ronald Reagan is only the third for a U.S. aircraft carrier since the end of the Vietnam War.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt stopped in Vietnam in 2020 to mark 25 years since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
This year Washington is seeking to upgrade its formal ties with Vietnam, amid Hanoi’s frequent disputes with Beijing over boundaries in the South China Sea. China claims the waters almost in their entirety, including the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam and other countries in the region.
U.S. carriers frequently cross the energy-rich sea, which contains crucial routes for global trade. The warships are often shadowed by Chinese vessels.
On Wednesday, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong and a group of escorting vessels sailed south through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.
TAIPEI, June 3 (Reuters) – China’s military rebuked the United States and Canada for “deliberately provoking risk” after the countries’ navies staged a rare joint sailing through the sensitive Taiwan Strait.
The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canada’s HMCS Montreal conducted a “routine” transit of the strait on Saturday “through waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law”.
“Chung-Hoon and Montreal’s bilateral transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the commitment of the United States and our allies and partners to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” it said in a statement.
The Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army said its forces monitored the ships throughout and “handled” the situation in accordance with the law and regulations.
“The countries concerned deliberately create incidents in the Taiwan Strait region, deliberately provoke risks, maliciously undermine regional peace and stability, and send the wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” it said late Saturday.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said the two ships sailed in a northerly direction through the strait and that it had observed nothing unusual.
While U.S. warships transit the strait around once a month, it is unusual for them to do so with those of other U.S. allies.
The mission took place as the U.S. and Chinese defence chiefs were attending a major regional security summit in Singapore.
At that event, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin rebuked China for refusing to hold military talks, leaving the superpowers deadlocked over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
There was no immediate response to the sailing from China’s military, which routinely denounces them as a U.S. effort to stir up tensions.
The last such publicly revealed U.S.-Canadian mission in the narrow strait took place in September.
China has been ramping up military and political pressure in an attempt to force Taiwan to accept Beijing’s sovereignty claims, which the government in Taipei strongly rejects.
Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by William Mallard and Nick Zieminski
[1/2] Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong attends the 22nd ASEAN Plus Three Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, November 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chalinee Thirasupa/File Photo
SINGAPORE, May 24 (Reuters) – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has ordered an investigation into the circumstances around the rental of state-owned homes in an exclusive location to two cabinet ministers following questions from the opposition.
The matter has prompted comment in the wealthy city-state, which has long prided itself on a government free from corruption, with the annual salaries of many cabinet ministers exceeding S$1 million ($755,000) to discourage graft.
Lee said the review by a senior minister, whose results will be made public before lawmakers take up the issue in July, would establish whether “proper process” was followed in the rental of the colonial-era bungalows and if there was wrongdoing.
“This must be done to ensure that this government maintains the highest standards of integrity,” Lee said in a statement.
This month, opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaretnam questioned how the law and home affairs minister, K Shanmugam, and the foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, could afford the market rate for such “pricey” properties.
Shanmugam said accusations of impropriety were “outrageous” and he had nothing to hide. Balakrishnan said he was “very glad” a review was taking place.
Social media posts in Singapore mocked the ministers or expressed outrage over the size of the properties, while others questioned why the government needed time until July to explain the issue.
The expression of disapproval comes as many in Singapore battle rising living costs, amid high inflation and rising prices of homes and cars.
Eight in 10 of Singapore’s 3.6 million citizens live in public housing and just a third of households own cars.
Lawmakers, including three members of the ruling party and the leader of the opposition, have submitted parliamentary questions on whether the ministers acted on privileged information to secure the leases.
The Singapore Land Authority has said the ministers leased bungalows that had been vacant for years and had made bids that were higher than the rent guidance, a price that had not been disclosed to them.
Government graft scandals are rare in Singapore.
A minister was investigated in 1987 but died before the inquiry concluded.
Lee and his father – founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew – both addressed parliament in 1996 to answer accusations, investigated at the time by the prime minister, that the family had bought prime real estate at a discount.
The investigation concluded there was nothing improper about the Lee’s property purchases.
Xinghui leads the Singapore bureau, directing coverage of one of the region’s bellwether economies and Southeast Asia’s main financial hub. This ranges from macroeconomics to monetary policy, property, politics, public health and socioeconomic issues. She also keeps an eye on things that are unique to Singapore, such as how it repealed an anti-gay sex law but goes against global trends by maintaining policies unfavourable to LGBT families. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/even-singapore-lifts-gay-sex-ban-lgbt-families-feel-little-has-changed-2022-11-29/
Xinghui previously covered Asia for the South China Morning Post and has been in journalism for a decade.
DHAKA, May 14 (Reuters) – Storm surges whipped up by a powerful cyclone moving inland from the Bay of Bengal inundated the Myanmar port city of Sittwe on Saturday, but largely spared a densely-populated cluster of refugee camps in low-lying neighbouring Bangladesh.
Some 400,000 people were evacuated in Myanmar and Bangladesh ahead of Cyclone Mocha making landfall, as authorities and aid agencies scrambled to avert heavy casualties from one of the strongest storms to hit the region in recent years.
Vulnerable settlements in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where more than one million Rohingya refugees live, were left relatively unscathed by the storm that is now gradually weakening.
“Luckily, we could escape the worst of the cyclone,” said Mohammad Shamsud Douza, a Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees. “We are getting some reports of huts damaged but there are no casualties.”
Myanmar appears to have borne the direct impact of Cyclone Mocha, as winds of up to 210 kph (130 mph) ripped away tin roofs and brought down a communications tower.
Parts of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, were flooded and the ground floors of several buildings were under water, a video posted on social media by a witness in the city showed.
An ethnic militia that controls swathes of Rakhine said a large number of structures in Sittwe and Kyauktaw had been damaged, and schools and monasteries where people had been sheltering were left without roofs.
“The whole northern Rakhine has suffered severe damage,” Arakan Army spokesperson Khine Thu Kha said. “People are in trouble.”
Communication networks in Rakhine had been disrupted after the cyclone made landfall, the U.N. and local media said.
Across Rakhine state and the north west of the country about 6 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance, while 1.2 million have been displaced, according to the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA).
[1/4] People move from their homes to take shelter in the nearest cyclone shelter at Shah Porir Dwip during the landfall of cyclone Mocha in Teknaf, Bangladesh. REUTERS/Jibon Ahmed
“For a cyclone to hit an area where there is already such deep humanitarian need is a nightmare scenario, impacting hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people whose coping capacity has been severely eroded by successive crises,” U.N. resident coordinator Ramanathan Balakrishnan said.
Myanmar has been plunged into chaos since a junta seized power two years ago. After a crackdown on protests, a resistance movement is fighting the military on various fronts.
A junta spokesperson did not immediately answer a telephone call from Reuters to seek comment.
FOOD AND SUPPLIES
In Bangladesh, where authorities moved around 300,000 people to safer areas before the storm hit, Rohingya refugees inside densely-populated camps in the Cox’s Bazar in the south east of the country hunkered down inside their ramshackle homes.
“Our shelter, made of bamboo and tarpaulin, offers little protection,” said refugee Mohammed Aziz, 21. “We’re praying to Allah to save us.”
Many of the Rohingya refugees, half-a-million children among them, live in sprawling camps prone to flooding and landslides after having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
Hundreds of thousands of the Muslim Rohingya minority remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where many are confined to camps separated from the rest of the population.
“The state government has moved many Rohingya from Sittwe camps to higher grounds area,” Zaw Min Tun, a Rohingya resident in Sittwe said, adding that the evacuation took place without any warning.
“They also didn’t provide any food to them, so people are starving.”
Ahead of the storm, the World Food Programme said it was preparing food and relief supplies that could help more than 400,000 people in Rakhine and surrounding areas for a month.
Reporting by Ruma Paul in DHAKA and Reuters staff; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
Challenge ahead for opposition parties to form government
Move Forward comes close to sweep of capital Bangkok
No alliances with dictator-backed parties – Pita
Military parties down, but not out
Too soon to discuss alliances – Pheu Thai
BANGKOK, May 14 (Reuters) – Thailand’s opposition secured a stunning election win on Sunday after trouncing parties allied with the military, setting the stage for a flurry of deal-making over forming a government in a bid to end nearly a decade of conservative, army-backed rule.
The liberal Move Forward party and the populist Pheu Thai Party were far out in front with 99% of votes counted, but it was far from certain either will form the next government, with parliamentary rules written by the military after its 2014 coup skewed in its favour.
To rule, the opposition parties will need to strike deals and muster support from multiple camps, including members of a junta-appointed Senate that has sided with military parties and gets to vote on who becomes prime minister and form the next administration.
Sunday’s election was the latest bout in a long-running battle for power between Pheu Thai, the populist juggernaut of the billionaire Shinawatra family, and a nexus of old money, conservatives and military with influence over key institutions at the heart of two decades of turmoil.
But the staggering performance by Move Forward, riding a wave of support from young voters, will test the resolve of Thailand’s establishment and ruling parties after it came close to a clean sweep of the capital Bangkok on a platform of institutional reform and dismantling monopolies.
Move Forward came top, followed closely by Pheu Thai, the preliminary results showed. According to a Reuters calculation, both were set to win more than triple the number of seats of Palang Pracharat, the political vehicle of the junta, and the army-backed United Thai Nation party.
Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat, a 42-year-old former executive of a ride-hailing app, described the outcome as “sensational” and vowed to stay true to his party’s values when forming a government.
“It will be anti- dictator-backed, military-backed parties, for sure,” he told reporters. “It’s safe to assume that minority government is no longer possible here in Thailand.”
He said he remained open to an alliance with Pheu Thai, but has set his sights set on being prime minister.
“It is now clear the Move Forward Party has received the overwhelming support from the people around the country,” he said on Twitter.
Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics
MAJOR BLOW
[1/15] Move Forward Party leader and prime ministerial candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, waves to the crowd during the general election in Bangkok, Thailand, May 14, 2023. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
The preliminary results will be a crushing blow for the military and its allies. But with parliamentary rules on their side and influential figures behind them and involved behind the scenes, they could still have a role in government.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a retired general who led the last coup, had campaigned on continuity after nine years in charge, warning a change in government could lead to conflict.
On Sunday, he slipped away quietly from his United Thai Nation party headquarters, where there were few supporters to be seen.
A handful of staff sat beside plates of uneaten food as a giant television screen showed a live speech by Move Forward’s leader.
“I hope the country will be peaceful and prosper,” Prayuth told reporters. “I respect democracy and the election. Thank you.”
Pheu Thai had been expected to win having won most votes in every ballot since 2001, including two landslide victories. Three of its four governments have been ousted from office.
Founded by the polarising self-exiled tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, Pheu Thai remains hugely popular among the working classes and was banking on being swept back to power in a landslide on nostalgia for its populist policies like cheap healthcare, micro-loans and generous farming subsidies.
Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn, 36, has been tipped to follow in the footsteps of her father and of her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, and become prime minister. Yingluck and Thaksin were both overthrown in coups.
Paetongtarn said she was happy for Move Forward, but it was too soon to discuss alliances.
“The voice of the people is most important,” she said.
Move Forward saw a late-stage rally in opinion polls and was betting on 3.3 million first-time voters getting behind its liberal agenda, including plans to weaken the military’s political role and amend a strict law on royal insults that critics say is used to stifle dissent.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, said Move Forward’s surge demonstrated a major shift in Thai politics.
“Pheu Thai fought the wrong war. Pheu Thai fought the populism war that it already won,” he said.
“Move Forward takes the game to the next level with institutional reform. That’s the new battleground in Thai politics.”
Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by William Mallard
MANILA, April 24 (Reuters) – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Monday said he will press U.S. counterpart Joe Biden to make clear the extent of Washington’s commitment to protect his country under a 1951 security pact, citing growing regional tension.
The past two Philippine administrations have urged former colonial power United States to be specific on the circumstances under which it would defend its ally under the Mutual Defence Treaty, amid fears of an increased risk of confrontation in the South China Sea.
Marcos will hold talks with Biden in Washington on May 1, a meeting the White House said would reaffirm its “ironclad commitments to the defence of the Philippines”.
“It (the treaty) needs to adjust because of the changes in the situation we are facing in the South China Sea, Taiwan, North Korea,” Marcos said in a radio interview.
“The situation is heating up,” he added.
The push for clarity comes amid a steady buildup of military and coast guard assets by Beijing in the South China Sea, including artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago that are equipped with missile systems within range of the Philippines.
It also comes as the Biden and Marcos administrations seek to boost their military alliance, demonstrated this year by the largest-ever U.S. troop presence at annual war games and the Philippines almost doubling the number of its military bases that Washington can access.
HONG KONG, April 4 (Reuters) – China is for the first time keeping at least one nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine constantly at sea, according to a Pentagon report – adding pressure on the United States and its allies as they try to counter Beijing’s growing military.
The assessment of China’s military said China’s fleet of six Jin-class ballistic missile submarines were operating “near-continuous” patrols from Hainan Island into the South China Sea. Equipped with a new, longer-range ballistic missile, they can hit the continental United States, analysts say.
The note in the 174-page report drew little attention when it was released in late November, but shows crucial improvements in Chinese capabilities, according to four regional military attaches familiar with naval operations and five other security analysts.
Even as the AUKUS deal will see Australia field its first nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades, the constant Chinese ballistic missile patrols at sea pile strain on the resources of the United States and its allies as they intensify Cold War-style deployments.
“We’re going to want to have our SSNs trying to tail them… so the extra demands on our assets are clear,” said Christopher Twomey, a security scholar at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in California, speaking in a private capacity. SSN is a U.S. designation for a nuclear-powered attack sub. “But the point here is that the information – the near continuous patrols – has changed so rapidly that we don’t know what else has changed.”
The new patrols imply improvements in many areas, including logistics, command and control, and weapons. They also show how China starting to operate its ballistic missile submarines in much the same way the United States, Russia, Britain and France have for decades, military attaches, former submariners and security analysts say.
Their “deterrence patrols” allow them to threaten a nuclear counterattack even if land-based missiles and systems are destroyed. Under classic nuclear doctrine, that deters an adversary from launching an initial strike.
The Chinese subs are now being equipped with a third-generation missile, the JL-3, General Anthony Cotton, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told a congressional hearing in March.
With an estimated range of more than 10,000 kilometres (6,214 miles) and carrying multiple warheads, the JL-3 allows China to reach the continental United States from Chinese coastal waters for the first time, the Pentagon report notes.
Previous reports had said the JL-3 was not expected to be deployed until China launched its next-generation Type-096 submarines in coming years.
The Chinese defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the Pentagon report and its submarine deployments. The Pentagon did not comment on its earlier assessments or whether the Chinese deployments posed an operational challenge.
The U.S. Navy keeps about two dozen nuclear-powered attack subs based across the Pacific, including in Guam and Hawaii, according to the Pacific Fleet. Under AUKUS, U.S. and British nuclear-powered subs will be deployed out of Western Australia from 2027.
Such submarines are the core weapons for hunting ballistic missile subs, backed by surface ships and P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft. The U.S. also has seabed sensors in key sea lanes to help detect submarines.
Timothy Wright, a defence analyst at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, said U.S. forces could probably cope with the situation now, but would have to commit more assets in the next 10 to 15 years once the stealthier Type-096 patrols begin.
China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear forces mean U.S. strategists must contend with two “nuclear peer adversaries” for the first time, along with Russia, he added.
“That will be of concern to the United States because it will stretch U.S. defences, hold more targets at risk, and they will need addressing with additional conventional and nuclear capabilities,” he said.
COMMAND AUTHORITY
China’s navy has for years been thought to have the capability for deterrence patrols, but issues with command, control and communications have slowed their deployment, the military attaches and analysts say. Communications are crucial and complex for ballistic missile subs, which must remain hidden as part of their mission.
The Jin-class subs, expected to be replaced by the Type-096 over the next decade, are relatively noisy and easy to track, the military attaches said.
“Something concerning command authority must have also changed, but we just don’t have very good opportunities to talk to the Chinese about this kind of stuff,” Twomey said.
The Chinese military has emphasised that the Central Military Commission, headed by President Xi Jinping, is the only nuclear command authority.
Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, said he believed command and communications issues remained a “work in progress”.
“While China probably has made progress on establishing secure and operationally meaningful command and control between the Central Military Commission and the SSBNs, it seems unlikely that the capability is complete or necessarily fully battle hardened,” he said, using the designation letters for a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.
Two researchers at a Chinese navy training institute in Nanjing warned in a 2019 underwater-warfare journal of poor command organisation and co-ordination among submarine forces. The paper also urged improvements in submarine-launched nuclear strike capability.
The navy must “strengthen ballistic missile nuclear submarines on patrol at sea, so as to ensure that they have the means and capabilities to carry out secondary nuclear counterattack operations when necessary,” the researchers wrote.
SOUTH CHINA SEA ‘BASTION’
With the advent of the JL-3 missile, Kristensen and other analysts expect Chinese strategists to keep their ballistic missile subs in the deep waters of the South China Sea – which China has fortified with a string of bases – rather than risk patrols in the Western Pacific.
Collin Koh, a security fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said China could keep its ballistic missile submarines in a “bastion” of protected waters near its shores.
“If I was the planner, I would want to keep my strategic deterrence assets as close to me as possible, and the South China Sea is perfect for that,” Koh said.
Russia is thought to keep most of its 11 ballistic missile submarines largely in bastions off its Arctic coasts, while U.S., French and British boats roam more widely, three analysts said.
Kristensen said the more numerous Chinese submarine deployments have meant the PLA and U.S. militaries increasingly “rub up” against each other – increasing the odds of accidental conflict.
“The Americans of course are trying to poke into that bastion and see what they can do, and what they need to do, so that is where the tension can build and incidents happen,” he said.
Reporting By Greg Torode in Hong Kong and Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Gerry Doyle.
JAKARTA, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Egianus Kogoya, the dreadlocked rebel behind the kidnapping of a New Zealand pilot this month in the highlands of Indonesia’s Papua region, is at the vanguard of an increasingly dangerous and media-savvy insurgency for independence.
Separatist rebels kidnapped New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens, 37, after he landed his small plane in the remote Papuan highlands on Feb 7.
Sitting in the cockpit of the plane, Kogoya, wearing a denim jacket, bone necklace and mirror shades, with a hand draped over a rifle, appeared to relish posing as his men documented their most high-profile kidnapping to date.
In a series of videos, Kogoya demanded the resource-rich region’s independence in return for Mehrtens’ release.
Fighters in the Indonesian, western half of New Guinea island have for decades waged a low-level battle for independence, but Kogoya and his gang have emerged as especially dangerous and unpredictable.
“What we are seeing is younger, new leadership among local rebel groups that is more aggressive and not necessarily strategic in the long term,” said Deka Anwar, from the Jakarta-based think tank, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
The security ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the separatists but military spokesperson Kisdiyanto said attacks against Indonesian sovereignty by “a few” separatists were being handled.
The military has said it is preparing for a “law enforcement operation” but only as a last resort if negotiations to free Mehrtens fail.
Separatists say their fight is legitimate because former colonial power the Netherlands promised the region it could become independent before it was annexed by Indonesia in 1963.
Indonesia says Papua is its territory after a 1969 vote supervised by the United Nations, in which 1,025 handpicked people unanimously backed its integration.
More than a half a century later, rebels are still fighting the Indonesian republic.
An estimated 500 fighters identify as members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM).
Loosely organised and geographically fractured, the TPNPB lacks cohesion and a central leadership and command.
Instead, units in different areas operate under individual commanders, like Kogoya, who hails from a family with rebel connections – some relatives were behind the kidnapping of several foreign researchers in 1996.
For years, the separatists mounted small attacks with minimal casualties but Kogoya and his group opened a bloody new chapter in 2018 when they attacked a road-construction project killing 21 workers.
Indonesia launched a security crackdown in response, vowing to wipe out the rebels with hundreds of extra troops.
The violence forced thousands of villagers to flee, triggering a humanitarian crisis in which more than 160 people died of sickness and starvation. But in the rugged Papuan highlands, the security forces failed to track down Kogoya and his men.
SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL
Rebels who once brandished bows and arrows are now increasingly carrying guns, including automatic rifles seized in raids on the security forces or bought on the black market, and conducting more frequent and more lethal attacks, the IPAC said in a July report. Fifty-two members of the security forces and 34 fighters were killed between 2018 and 2021, it said.
The rebels are also taking advantage of modern communications.
Cahyo Pamungkas, a researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency, said the separatists are using social media to get their message out.
“Social media is a tool of resistance to deliver the stories from Papua because national media is mainly dominated by perspectives from Jakarta,” he said.
“They are really media savvy,” said IPAC’s Anwar, “They want to show they are not a rag tag rebel group but have some structure, at least at the local level.”
TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom said the New Zealand pilot was being well looked after and treated as “family”.
“This was his idea but we are responsible for controlling the situation,” Sambom said by telephone, referring to Kogoya’s seizure of the pilot.
Sambom vowed more violence unless the separatists’ demands were met, saying the TPNPB planned a “total revolution” by 2025 with widespread destruction and bloodshed.
The government did not respond to requests for comment on the rebel threat of escalation.
Some rights activists criticise the government’s response to the insurgency.
A project to get satellite coverage over the area that would help the security forces pinpoint Kogoya’s location has become embroiled in graft, a lawmaker with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
There are also questions about overall responsibility for policy with the government flagging a “softer approach” while the military has tended to deploy more troops in response to attacks.
“It’s not quite under the control of the civilian government there,” said Marzuki Darusman, a former attorney general turned human rights campaigner.
“It’s become military turf and that doesn’t help.”
(This story has been corrected to fix the name to Sebby Sambom, not Sebby Sambon, in paragraphs 24-26)
Additional reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Robert Birsel
BENGALURU, Feb 22 (Reuters) – India does not want the G20 to discuss additional sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine during New Delhi’s one-year presidency of the bloc, six senior Indian officials said on Wednesday, amid debate over how even to describe the conflict.
On the sidelines of a G20 gathering in India, financial leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations will meet on Feb. 23, the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion, to discuss measures against Russia, Japan’s finance minister said on Tuesday.
The officials, who are directly involved in this week’s G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs, said the economic impact of the conflict would be discussed but India did not want to consider additional actions against Russia.
“India is not keen to discuss or back any additional sanctions on Russia during the G20,” said one of the officials. “The existing sanctions on Russia have had a negative impact on the world.”
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
Another official said sanctions were not a G20 issue. “G20 is an economic forum for discussing growth issues.”
Spokespeople for the Indian government and the finance and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, the first day of meetings to draft the G20 communique, officials struggled to find an acceptable word to describe the Russia-Ukraine conflict, delegates of at least seven countries present in the meetings said.
India tried to form a consensus on the words by calling it a “crisis” or a “challenge” instead of a “war”, the officials said, but the discussions concluded without a decision.
These discussions have been rolled over to Thursday when U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be part of the meetings.
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has previously said the war has disproportionately hit poorer countries by raising prices of fuel and food.
India’s neighbours – Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh – have all sought loans from the International Monetary Fund in recent months to tide over economic troubles brought about by the pandemic and the war.
U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on Tuesday that Washington and its allies planned in coming days to impose new sanctions and export controls that would target Russia’s purchase of dual-use goods like refrigerators and microwaves to secure semiconductors needed for its military.
The sanctions would also seek to do more to stem the trans-shipment of oil and other restricted goods through bordering countries.
In addition, Adeyemo said officials from a coalition of more than 30 countries would warn companies, financial institutions and individuals still doing business with Russia that they faced sanctions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has not openly criticised Moscow for the invasion and instead called for dialogue and diplomacy to end the war. India has also sharply raised purchases of oil from Russia, its biggest supplier of defence hardware.
Jaishankar told Reuters partner ANI this week that India’s relationship with Russia had been “extraordinarily steady and it has been steady through all the turbulence in global politics”.
Additional reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie
Bangkok, Thailand – The Golden Triangle – a region where the jungle borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet – has long been notorious as the centre of an illegal drug trade operated, controlled and protected by warlord-like military leaders allied with regional organised crime figures.
Synthetic drugs produced in the Golden Triangle have flooded regional markets. In 2021 alone, more than a billion methamphetamine pills were seized by authorities in Southeast and East Asia, according to the United Nations.
Organised crime syndicates and armed groups had joined forces in the Golden Triangle, with their expanded drug production exploiting the twin vulnerabilities of the recent pandemic and political instability in Myanmar, the UN said last year, leading to a drugs trade described as “staggering” in scale.
New data released last month by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) also showed that opium poppy cultivation has surged by 33 percent in the Golden Triangle and opium yields have the potential to burgeon by 88 percent.
Last year, 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of opium poppies were cultivated in Myanmar, with an estimated potential opium yield of almost 800 metric tonnes.
Myanmar’s overall illicit opiate economy is now estimated to be worth $2bn while the regional market for heroin is valued at a staggering $10bn, according to the UN.
The resurgence of opium production in the highlands of the Golden Triangle will reverberate all the way down to the “wider drug economy centred around the lower Mekong region” and far beyond, the UN warned.
To understand the forces at play in the Golden Triangle drug trade, Al Jazeera spoke with Jeremy Douglas, UNODC’s regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Al Jazeera: At the recent launch of the UNODC report on opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, a key theme was that the Golden Triangle is back. Can you please expand on that?
Douglas: The Golden Triangle has always been there but what we’ve seen over recent years is a really stark shift from opium and heroin towards methamphetamine and recently some ketamine.
That change was extremely profound and it started as we saw a migration of major organised crime into the Golden Triangle to produce synthetic drugs in late 2013.
The situation that has taken hold after February ’21 [when the military seized power in Myanmar] is that the dynamic in the Triangle has changed yet again. We’ve seen a further scale-up of synthetic drugs but we’ve also seen a severe economic contraction in the country and a return of the other side of the Golden Triangle – the traditional opium, [and] the heroin that follows – in a profound way.
So we’re seeing the Golden Triangle return to its roots to some extent, and at the same time, the synthetic drug economy remains outsized.
Al Jazeera: Why had opium production dropped off in the Golden Triangle?
Douglas: A variety of factors. There was the massive supply that was coming out of Afghanistan … which was feeding global markets. And then around 2014, 2015, we started seeing a massive surge of synthetic drugs following the migration of major crime groups’ operations into the Triangle and the supply starting to drive demand, drive the regional market, and a significant increase in synthetic drug use across the region.
At the same time, there was another phenomenon that took place in 2014 when Myanmar opened and foreign investment flooded in. The economy inside the country profoundly changed. A lot of people who would have had no other choice but to engage in opium farming … had other [opportunities]. There were other forms of income being generated in the country which they could benefit from.
And we were running some programmes which are really good to help farmers transition out of opium towards crops like high-value coffee and tea.
UNODC staff collect data on opium cultivation in Myanmar in 2022 [Courtesy of UNODC]
Al Jazeera: The UN notes the regional impact that the increase in opium production in the Golden Triangle will have. Can you speak to that?
Douglas: The increase in opium that has taken place over the past year will result in an increase in heroin supply. An increase which will feed into the regional market – a suddenly more diverse drug market. And this additional challenge has a profound health impact.
Heroin is an injectable drug which brings with it health and societal impacts. It will also generate further wealth for traffickers, which is going to … involve a range of other illicit activities like money laundering and precursor trafficking, that are already a challenge for the region to deal with.
So when we say regional impact, we mean there’s the immediate health issues that I’ve touched on and the fact is that the countries of this region are going to experience the brunt of this, like they are experiencing the brunt of the methamphetamine, the ketamine.
Al Jazeera: Are we going to see opium poppy cultivation continue to increase in the Golden Triangle?
Douglas: Right now, we’re collecting and verifying in the field, but initial reports from the teams are that we’re looking at further increase. The question is the magnitude of it, we simply don’t know.
Al Jazeera: The situation with the drug trade in Myanmar appears to be inextricably linked to the political situation in Myanmar. That one has to be solved to resolve the other.
Douglas: You cannot separate economics from politics, security and stability in any country. And when you have a political crisis of this nature and a pre-existing illicit economy that was sizeable – and you have a contraction in the real economy to the extent that it has happened – of course, the illicit economy will step in and fill the void.
Fundamentally, there has to be a candid, honest discussion about the convergence of politics, economics, security and the drug trade in the country – illicit economies – and it is, in fact, a regionalised illicit economy. The borderlands of Thailand and Laos are profoundly impacted and they will be increasingly impacted in the years ahead.
But the impact cascades across East and Southeast Asia and addressing it will require political engagement by neighbouring countries, but also by the ASEAN group and China together with Myanmar.
Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and the Pacific regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [File: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP]
Al Jazeera: You have said that corruption greases the wheels of the drug trade. How systematic and organised is the corruption around the drug trade in the Golden Triangle?
Douglas: Corruption is inbuilt in the drug trade. For the heroin to move from the labs of northern Shan [state] to Thailand, there would have to be pre-arranged payment agreed. Payments would also be made when it gets to the Thai border where the price per kg escalates. If authorities tasked with interdiction on the Thai border are not successful, drugs get through. But, at the same time, there’s always the potential for corruption at the border.
In essence, what I’m describing is the chain: from source right through to export and end market involves corruption.
Al Jazeera: You have also mentioned the role of money laundering. Profits are so massive in the drug trade that those profits have to go somewhere.
Douglas: Increasingly large drug profits have had to move somewhere and casinos have played a special role in recent years. As have other cash-based businesses that built up around them, some of the hotels, some of the entertainment businesses. They can take in cash which is then pushed through their books and which can end up in banks.
So, it is important for the casino industry to be carefully monitored and possibly worked with to help address the laundering. As well, banks that are banking on behalf of casinos in the Mekong [region] have to be aware that much or some of the money going through them is associated with the drug trade and it ends up in the regional banking system.
Al Jazeera: Could you speak to your description of opium farming as an employer of last resort?
Douglas: I would say our understanding from the farmers – and we’ve talked to them for years and years – is that they’re ready to give up opium. They turn to opium when they don’t have other options. And as they lose options or they don’t have other opportunities, they go back to it. So in a sense, when I say last resort, I mean it’s like an employer of last resort. It’s the old standby in a way … And especially now as they’re being incentivised and helped to go back into it by brokers that are representatives of heroin producers, and without other options, they go back to it.
Al Jazeera: Heroin producers encourage farmers to produce opium. Is there also a degree of intimidation there as well?
Douglas: So what we have been informed of by people from across the opium-producing areas is that representatives that buy opium have come into the territories, encouraged farmers to go back to it, provided seeds, fertilisers, and in some parts irrigation and sprinkler equipment.
They finance certain costs and then come back and buy their crop back from them and collect money for what they helped them get started with – the starting materials. It’s almost like a contract farming type arrangement like you see with other crops or agricultural products in the region. But I should say as well that they’re not pleasant to deal with, is what we are told by the farmers. They’re being advised to go into this. But, the techniques that are used can be “We want you to go back and do opium farming”, if you know what I mean.
And it’s a difficult proposition to say no to when you have someone come to you who is representing powerful interests. How does a poor farmer or village say no to those powerful interests?
Al Jazeera: What of the role of ethnic armed organisations in this? Do they rationalise what they do behind a philosophy of earning income from opium that allows them to buy weapons to fight for their freedom?
Douglas: I think there used to be that element of it and I think maybe that is still there. But I think we should not romanticise the involvement in drug trafficking and the partnerships with organised crime. Traffickers are business people. Heroin and methamphetamine traffickers are fundamentally ruthless business people.
They’re in the drug trade to make a lot of money. So while there is money from the business that finances groups and armed resistance, there are others including some major traffickers that disingenuously wear a uniform because it gives them a certain level of legitimacy. But at the end of the day, they’re traffickers, they’re organised crime figures.
An opium poppy field in flower in Myanmar’s Shan state, December 2022 [Courtesy of UNODC]
Al Jazeera: What is the relationship between the Myanmar government and some of the ethnic armed groups that are cultivating opium?
Douglas: There are groups that are under the umbrella of the security services of Myanmar and there are others which are not under that umbrella, which are independent and advocating for their autonomy. The ones under the umbrella have a formalised relationship, and they have their territory and they’re more or less left alone.
It’s hard to believe that they don’t know what’s going on in territory of the border guard or people’s militia forces, which we know, and the Thais know, and everyone seems to know, are involved. But then there’s the others, which are not under that umbrella, and many are producing and trafficking as well. And so it’s an extremely complex landscape of who’s producing and who’s not.
Al Jazeera: With a civil war in Myanmar, armed groups and drugs, how can you be hopeful in a situation like that?
Douglas: I think there are some, from time to time, signs of hope. Given what we’ve described, though, in terms of the synthetic drug economy and now opium and heroin, the related criminality, these are really difficult times for the country and the region. But again, that’s why we have to redouble efforts, quite frankly, and why we are saying to the region it’s time to have a political and strategic discussion about this.
The region cannot police its way out of this. It’s not going to work. So while it isn’t an optimistic situation, it’s a situation that has to be dealt with and we’ve got to get to that point, of candidly getting leadership to say it’s time now to do something different here.
A police officer from the Office of the Narcotics Control Board guards bags of methamphetamine pills during a destruction ceremony in Ayutthaya province, north of Bangkok, Thailand, 2015 [File: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters]
Al Jazeera: Drug interdiction and policing alone are not a solution?
Douglas: The drug policy of this region is heavily tilted in a certain direction, which clearly hasn’t really worked well.
It’s been decades of trying to seize more drugs, and it’s more drugs every year. Let’s be honest, it’s not working. And we’ve been saying it for years. Address demand. Prevent the growth in demand, and address the health and societal impacts. But also adjust law enforcement strategy. You cannot seize your way out of this, particularly with synthetic drugs, which are infinite.
You have to radically change your approach. You have to dismantle the business model of organised crime. Disrupt their banking, disrupt their chemical trade, disrupt the facilitators of their business, their lawyers, their money launderers. They have to be dealt with.
The problem is the region continues to chase the drug supply and make seizures and measure their success by seizures. Clearly, that’s not working.
We hope that regional leaders will start prioritising this beyond policing because right now it’s still a police discussion. So we have to get beyond that and it has to be changed at a policy level.
Market rout deepens in Indian tycoon Adani’s shares
Adani Enterprises loses $26 bln in value since report
Falls after Adani pulled share sale, investors spooked
Analysts say signals confidence crisis in Indian market
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Adani’s market losses swelled above $100 billion on Thursday, sparking worries about a potential systemic impact a day after the Indian group’s flagship firm abandoned its $2.5 billion stock offering.
Another challenge for Adani on Thursday came when S&P Dow Jones Indices said it would remove Adani Enterprises from widely used sustainability indices, effective Feb. 7, which would make the shares less appealing to sustainability-minded funds.
In addition, India’s National Stock Exchange said it has placed on additional surveillance shares of Adani Enterprises <ADEL.NS>, Adani Ports <APSE.NS> and Ambuja Cements <ABUJ.NS>. read more
However, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani is in talks with lenders to prepay and release pledged shares as he seeks to restore confidence in the financial health of his conglomerate, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. read more
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
The shock withdrawal of Adani Enterprises’ share sale marks a dramatic setback for founder Adani, the school dropout-turned-billionaire whose fortunes rose rapidly in recent years but have plunged in just a week after a critical research report by U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research.
Aborting the share sale sent shockwaves across markets, politics and business. Adani stocks plunged, opposition lawmakers called for a wider probe and India’s central bank sprang into action to check on the exposure of banks to the group. Meanwhile, Citigroup’s (C.N) wealth unit stopped making margin loans to clients against Adani Group securities.
The crisis marks an dramatic turn of fortune for Adani, who has in recent years forged partnerships with foreign giants such as France’s TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) and attracted investors such as Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company as he pursues a global expansion stretching from ports to the power sector.
In a shock move late on Wednesday, Adani called off the share sale as a stocks rout sparked by Hindenburg’s criticisms intensified, despite it being fully subscribed a day earlier.
“Adani may have started a confidence crisis in Indian shares and that could have broader market implications,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at Swissquote Bank.
Adani Enterprises shares tumbled 27% on Thursday, closing at their lowest level since March 2022.
Other group companies also lost further ground, with 10% losses at Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS), Adani Green Energy (ADNA.NS) and Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS), while Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone shed nearly 7%.
Since Hindenburg’s report on Jan. 24, group companies have lost nearly half their combined market value. Adani Enterprises – described as an incubator of Adani’s businesses – has lost $26 billion in market capitalisation.
Adani is also no longer Asia’s richest person, having slid to 16th in the Forbes rankings of the world’s wealthiest people, with his net worth almost halved to $64.6 billion in a week.
The 60-year-old had been third on the list, behind billionaires Elon Musk and Bernard Arnault.
His rival Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) is now Asia’s richest person.
[1/4] Indian billionaire Gautam Adani addresses delegates during the Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata, India April 20, 2022. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri
Reuters Graphics
BROADER CONCERNS
Adani’s plummeting stock and bond prices have raised concerns about the likelihood of a wider impact on India’s financial system.
India’s central bank has asked local banks for details of their exposure to the Adani Group, government and banking sources told Reuters on Thursday.
CLSA estimates that Indian banks were exposed to about 40% of the $24.5 billion of Adani Group debt in the fiscal year to March 2022.
Dollar bonds issued by entities of Adani Group extended losses on Thursday, with notes of Adani Green Energy crashing to a record low. Adani Group entities made scheduled coupon payments on outstanding U.S. dollar-denominated bonds on Thursday, Reuters reported citing sources.
“We see the market is losing confidence on how to gauge where the bottom can be and although there will be short-covering rebounds, we expect more fundamental downside risks given more private banks (are) likely to cut or reduce margin,” said Monica Hsiao, chief investment officer of Hong Kong-based credit fund Triada Capital.
In New Delhi, opposition lawmakers submitted notices in parliament demanding discussion of the short-seller’s report.
The Congress Party called for a Joint Parliamentary Committee be set up or a Supreme Court monitored investigation, while some lawmakers shouted anti-Adani slogans inside parliament, which was adjourned for the day.
ADANI VS HINDENBURG
Adani made acquisitions worth $13.8 billion in 2022, Dealogic data showed, its highest ever and more than double the previous year.
The cancelled fundraising was critical for Adani, which had said it would use $1.33 billion to fund green hydrogen projects, airports facilities and greenfield expressways, and $508 million to repay debt at some units.
Hindenburg’s report alleged an improper use of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation by the Adani Group. It also raised concerns about high debt and the valuations of seven listed Adani companies.
The Adani Group has denied the accusations, saying the allegation of stock manipulation had “no basis” and stemmed from an ignorance of Indian law. It said it has always made the necessary regulatory disclosures.
Adani had managed to secure share sale subscriptions on Tuesday even though the stock’s market price was below the issue’s offer price. Maybank Securities and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority had bid for the anchor portion of the issue, investments which will now be reimbursed by Adani.
Late on Wednesday, the group’s founder said he was withdrawing the sale given the share price fall, adding his board felt going ahead with it “will not be morally correct”.
Reporting by Chris Thomas, Nallur Sethuraman, Tanvi Mehta, Ira Dugal, Aftab Ahmed, Sumeet Chatterjee, Anshuman Daga, Summer Zhen, Ross Kerber and Bansari Mayur Kamdar; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Jason Neely and Alexander Smith
Feb 3 (Reuters) – U.S. officials said on Thursday that a Chinese “surveillance balloon” has been flying over the United States for several days.
Using high-altitude balloons for spying and other military missions is a practice that dates to the middle of the last century. Here is what is known about how they operate and what they can be used for:
* During World War 2, the Japanese military tried to loft incendiary bombs into U.S. territory using balloons designed to float in jet stream air currents. No military targets were damaged, but several civilians were killed when one of the balloons crashed in an Oregon forest.
* Just after World War 2, the U.S. military started exploring the use of high-altitude spy balloons, which led to a large-scale series of missions called Project Genetrix. The project flew photographic balloons over Soviet bloc territory in the 1950s, according to government documents.
A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, U.S. February 1, 2023 in this picture obtained from social media. Chase Doak/via REUTERS
* Such balloons typically operate at 80,000-120,000 feet (24,000-37,000m), well above where commercial air traffic flies – airliners almost never fly higher than 40,000 feet. The highest-performing fighter aircraft typically do not operate above 65,000 feet, although spy planes such as the U-2 have a service ceiling of 80,000 feet or more.
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
* The advantages of balloons over satellites include the ability to scan wide swathes of territory from closer in, and to be able to spend more time over a target area, according to a 2009 report to the U.S. Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College.
* Unlike satellites, which require space launchers that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, balloons can be launched cheaply.
* The balloons are not directly steered, but can be roughly guided to a target area by changing altitudes to catch different wind currents, according to a 2005 study for the Air Force’s Airpower Research Institute.
* The U.S. military has tracked other spy balloons in recent years, including before President Joe Biden’s administration, according to a senior U.S. defense official.
Reporting by Gerry Doyle;
Editing by Don Durfee and Stephen Coates
ATLANTA, Jan 13 (Reuters) – At least nine people died in tornadoes that destroyed homes and knocked out power to tens of thousands in the U.S. Southeast, local officials said on Friday, and the death toll in hard-hit central Alabama was expected to rise.
The storms on Thursday stretched from Mississippi to Georgia. At least five tornadoes touched down in central Alabama, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jessica Laws. One of those twisters potentially tracked about 150 miles (241 km) from southwest Selma, Alabama, to the Georgia-Alabama state line, she said.
Rescue teams were searching for missing people in Alabama’s Autauga County, where seven deaths have been reported, emergency management director Ernie Baggett said on MSNBC. He credited schools for saving more lives by not releasing students early.
County coroner Buster Barber told Reuters the number of casualties would rise.
“We are finding more bodies as we speak,” he said in a phone interview. “We’ve got search teams out in the area.”
Storms damaged as many as 50 properties in Autauga County, according to the local sheriff’s office.
In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp confirmed two people had died in Thursday’s storms. A 5-year-old child was killed after a tree fell on a car, leaving an adult passenger in critical condition as they were driving home, Butts County Coroner Lacey Prue said.
A state employee also was killed while responding to the storm, Kemp said.
Images from the severe storms showed widespread damage in Selma, a pivotal site of the U.S. civil rights movement. A tornado tore off rooftops and hurled debris. Multiple businesses and homes were destroyed, and trees were ripped from their roots.
[1/5] Whole rooms are seen without walls on the second floor of a home the day after a tornado struck Dallas County near Selma, Alabama, U.S. January 13, 2023. Mickey Welsh/USA Today Network via REUTERS
Residents were visibly shaken by the experience, and some counted themselves lucky to be alive.
One woman began to cry as she described riding out the storm in her bathtub. She said the winds picked up her trailer, destroying everything inside.
Ray Hogg said he found shelter inside a country club.
“You could hear the roar, glass going everywhere,” he said. “You could hear the roof literally being torn off right over our heads.”
Officials confirmed four tornadoes touched down in Georgia, largely southeast of Atlanta but causing damage across the state, with winds peeling off roofs, knocking down houses and uprooting trees.
Just southeast of Atlanta, a freight train had three of its cars blown off the tracks, blocking traffic. No injuries from that incident were reported, officials said.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Thursday declared a state of emergency for the six counties of Autauga, Chambers, Coosa, Dallas, Elmore and Tallapoosa.
Nearly 20,000 customers were without power in Alabama on Friday, according to PowerOutage.us. The storm also led to power outages in neighboring states of Mississippi and Georgia.
Tornado sirens in Monroe County in northeast Mississippi, where a twister made landfall, failed to activate as the storm moved through the area, local news reported.
Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta
Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Matthew Lewis and Josie Kao
NEW DELHI, Dec 24 (Reuters) – India has mandated a COVID-19 negative test report for travelers arriving from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand, the health minister said on Saturday.
Passengers from those countries would be put under quarantine if they showed symptoms of COVID-19 or tested positive, Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
(This story has been refiled to correct grammar in paragraph 2)
WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Vietnam has conducted a major expansion of dredging and landfill work at several of its South China Sea outposts in the second half of this year, signaling an intent to significantly fortify its claims in the disputed waterway, a U.S. think tank reported on Wednesday.
Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said the work in the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by China and others, had created roughly 420 acres (170 hectares) of new land and brought the total area Vietnam had reclaimed in the past decade to 540 acres (220 hectares).
Basing its findings on commercial satellite imagery, CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said the effort included expanded landfill work at four features and new dredging at five others.
“The scale of the landfill work, while still falling far short of the more than 3,200 acres of land created by China from 2013 to 2016, is significantly larger than previous efforts from Vietnam and represents a major move toward reinforcing its position in the Spratlys,” the report said.
Vietnam’s Washington embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
AMTI said Vietnam’s midsized outposts at Namyit Island, Pearson Reef and Sand Cay were undergoing major expansions, with a dredged port capable of hosting larger vessels already taking shape at Namyit and Pearson.
Namyit Island, at 117 acres (47 hectares) and Pearson Reef, at 119 acres (48 hectares), were both now larger than Spratly Island at 97 acres (39 hectares), which had been Vietnam’s largest outpost. Tennent Reef, which previously only hosted two small pillbox structures, now had 64 acres (26 hectares)of artificial land, the report said.
AMTI said Vietnam used clamshell dredgers to scoop up sections of shallow reef and deposit the sediment for landfill, a less destructive process than the cutter-suction dredging China had used to build its artificial islands.
“But Vietnam’s dredging and landfill activities in 2022 are substantial and signal an intent to significantly fortify its occupied features in the Spratlys,” the report said.
“(W)hat infrastructure the expanded outposts will host remains to be seen. Whether and to what degree China and other claimants react will bear watching,” it said.
China claims most of the South China Sea and has established military outposts on artificial islands it has built there. Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines all have overlapping claims in the sea, which is crisscrossed by vital shipping lanes and contains gas fields and rich fishing grounds.
Reporting by David Brunnstrom; editing by Jonathan Oatis
JAKARTA, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Thousands of residents in Indonesia’s East Java were on high alert on Monday after a violent eruption at the island’s tallest volcano prompted authorities to impose an 8-kilometer no-go zone and forced evacuations of entire villages.
The provincial search and rescue agency deployed teams to the worst-affected areas near Mount Semeru to assess damage, with low rainfall giving some reprieve, Tholib Vatelehan, a Basarnas spokesperson, told Reuters.
“Yesterday, the rainfall level was high, causing all the material from the top of the mountain to come down. But today, so far, there’s no rain, so its relatively safe,” he said.
No casualties have been reported and there has not been any immediate disruption to air travel.
The 3,676-metre volcano erupted at 2.46pm local time on Sunday (0746GMT). Footage shot by local residents showed Mt. Semeru spewing a giant cloud of grey ash high above its crater, which later engulfed the mountain and surrounding rice paddy fields, roads and bridges, and turned the sky black. A video shared by the Environment Ministry on Twitter showed a pyroclastic flow of lava, rocks and hot gases gushing down the mountainside.
People fled the eruption on motorcycles, with almost 2,500 people forced to evacuate, authorities said.
Indonesia’s volcanology and geological hazard mitigation agency on Sunday raised the alert level for Mt. Semeru to the highest level. The agency also issued a warning to residents not to approach within 8 km (5 miles) of the summit, or 500 metres of riversides due to risks of lava flows.
Semeru erupted last year killing more than 50 people and displacing thousands more.
The eruption, some 640 km (400 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta, follows a series of earthquakes in the west of Java, including one last month that killed more than 300 people.
An archipelago of 270 million that sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth.
With 142 volcanoes, Indonesia has the largest population globally living in close range to a volcano, including 8.6 million within 10km (6.2 miles).
Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/BLGKXTSM2VIA7IFW2TRISA3JDI.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/KE6FLULGUVN3DBZQQHOATKHOAI.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/52YXVXADANMIFA5NDBLUCZKKQE.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/QCLR7OJMEFL2XI52TRQOCMGV74.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/ERPN4EBLPNMUPOJ3UH43AXZJKY.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/V6VZ7QR2IJKQRGCNVPN7RU4LAU.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/HJRCSFCWNJKEDH3OTP5HAYU6NU.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/NSQ4GGTQ6BMVJESKTNDKOWDN7I.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/PGCIG4JROFMJTBG7ZASJH2SK6E.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/GH73BIDPB5MQZMSYYEKXP7UDLY.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/IAHGYLDD2FKVDMTGXPB6CCIUJ4.jpg)
![An opium poppy field in flower in Myanmar's Shan State in December 2022 [Courtesy of UNODC]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Opium-fields-flowering-central-Shan_December-2022.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/CPPQ5NUACFMULF5WSD3A6ZTR5Q.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/DEOVYEMA4VJZJLM4CGXIQMUDBQ.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/GIIJR2BGNZPNHE46H4EQHUZWPU.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/VC2NPG2ALBKTLGIFR54MR4NL34.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/IRP5GF7NKFL6RLSCUZSWUF5VH4.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/NXIZ3MB3PFNC7EAJQRZ6GYGN5Y.jpg)