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Rabu, 31 Maret 2021

Myanmar anti-coup protesters hold vigils as crackdown death toll continues to rise - CNA

YANGON: Myanmar activists held candle-lit vigils overnight after scores of deaths in recent days from a military crackdown on anti-coup protesters and clashes in ethnic border areas, as the United States ordered non-essential embassy staff to leave.

At least 521 civilians have been killed in two months of protests against the Feb 1 coup, 141 of them on Saturday (Mar 27), the bloodiest day of the unrest, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

The advocacy group said a further eight people died on Tuesday, when thousands came out to march in several towns, according to media and photos on social media.

There were also new candle-lit protests overnight in towns across Myanmar in defiance of a curfew and at least one dawn march on Wednesday by demonstrators, media reports said.

READ: US orders departure of non-essential diplomats from Myanmar

READ: As ethnic armies unite against coup, war returns to Myanmar's borderlands

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army ousted an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, detaining her and reimposing military rule after a decade of tentative steps towards democracy.

Fighting has also flared between the army and insurgents in frontier regions, and refugees are spilling over borders.

The Karen National Union (KNU) rebel group, which operates along the eastern border with Thailand, said on Tuesday that it was bracing for a major government offensive.

The group urged the international community, neighbouring Thailand in particular, to help Karen people fleeing the "onslaught" and called for countries to cut ties with the junta to stop the violence against civilians.

Meanwhile, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a rebel group in the north, attacked a police station in Kachin state at 3am on Wednesday, the Kachin News Group said.

A march by civilian protesters also took place at dawn on Wednesday in Moegaung in Kachin, the news service reported.

Police and a spokesman for the Myanmar junta did not answer calls seeking comment.

UN REFUGEE AGENCY CONCERNED

The US on Tuesday ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees and their family members from Myanmar due to concerns over civil unrest.

Opponents of the coup have called for a united front with insurgent groups.

Rebels have battled the government for decades for greater autonomy in remote border regions. The military has justified its long grip on power by saying it is the only institution capable of ensuring national unity.

READ: Thailand denies sending fleeing villagers back to Myanmar

Commentary: Myanmar protesters are not giving up so easily

Military aircraft bombed KNU fighters on the weekend, sending about 3,000 villagers fleeing to Thailand.

Thailand denied accusations from activists that refugees were being forced to return, but a Thai official on the border said the army was sending most people back because it was deemed safe on the Myanmar side.

A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency said it was concerned about reports that people were being sent back and it was seeking information from Thailand.

A border state in India withdrew an order to refuse refugees food and shelter after the measure drew fierce public criticism.

US SAYS VIOLENCE "REPREHENSIBLE"

The military seized power saying that last November's elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's party were fraudulent, an assertion dismissed by the election commission.

A civil disobedience campaign of strikes has paralysed parts of the economy, and protesters stepped it up by asking residents on Tuesday to leave rubbish at city intersections.

Western countries have condemned the coup and the violence and called for Aung San Suu Kyi's release, and some have imposed limited sanctions.

READ: Myanmar crackdown death toll passes 520

READ: France denounces 'blind and deadly' violence in Myanmar

In Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said some foreign countries and companies with significant investments in enterprises that support Myanmar's military should reconsider those stakes.

He said the recent violence was "reprehensible" and followed a pattern of "increasingly disturbing and even horrifying violence" against demonstrators opposing military rule.

Indonesia has led efforts by members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, to encourage a negotiated solution, despite an old agreement not to comment on each other's problems.

Foreign criticism and Western sanctions against previous Myanmar juntas have had little short-term impact.

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2021-03-31 04:52:56Z
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Xinjiang link prompts concern over Australian Olympic uniforms - CNA

SYDNEY: Australian Olympians became embroiled in the global row over Chinese forced-labour cotton on Wednesday (Mar 31) as the country revealed its uniforms for the upcoming Tokyo Games.

The Australian Olympic Committee faced criticism as it rolled out Asics-branded sportswear, with the company facing questions over its use of cotton from the Xinjiang region.

"We've been assured that none of the cotton for the Australian Olympic team comes from that region," said Ian Chesterman, Australian Olympic Committee vice president.

"I think athletes at the moment need to focus on what their job is, which is to get out there and compete for Australia," he said during a press conference.

READ: China warns companies against politicising actions regarding Xinjiang

Commentary: China's boycott of H&M, Nike and other big brands is really bizarre

At least 1 million Uyghurs and people from other mostly Muslim groups are believed to have been held in camps in Xinjiang, in China's north-west.

Human rights groups, independent media and foreign governments have found evidence that the local authorities have carried out mass detention, forced labour, political indoctrination, torture and forcible sterilisation.

The United States has described the situation as genocide and banned all cotton from Xinjiang. Australia's parliament is considering a similar move.

Several major fashion brands recently announced they would no longer use cotton from Xinjiang - for fear it has been produced by forced labour.

But Asics was one of several firms - hoping to safeguard access to China's vast marketplace - that initially responded to the allegations by vowing to "continue to purchase and support Xinjiang cotton".

"DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL"

Nathan Ruser, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, was among the critics describing Australia's use of Asics sportswear as "disgusting and shameful".

An Asics spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday that the initial company statement on Chinese social media was "unauthorised" and did not represent "our official corporate position on this matter".

"We are fully committed to working closely with business partners to ensure human rights are respected and environmental standards are met at all times," the spokesperson said.

READ: UN in talks with China for unrestricted Xinjiang visit

READ: Washington condemns China's 'baseless sanctions' against US officials over Xinjiang

The Chinese government has denied carrying out rights abuses but companies that have voiced concerns have been punished.

Swedish fashion retailer H&M disappeared from Chinese shopping apps and has been targeted for boycott.

Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times on Tuesday said Asics had become "the latest target of a boycott by Chinese customers" and was facing "catastrophic losses" after backtracking on its initial statement.

China is one of the world's largest suppliers of cotton, making up around one-fifth of the global total.

Almost 90 per cent of China's cotton comes is believed to come from Xinjiang.

"I don't think any Australian athlete wants to wear a uniform produced by a company that is sourcing cotton from Xinjiang," Elaine Pearson, Australia director for Human Rights Watch, told AFP.

"This is a test case for companies like Asics about how committed they are to upholding human rights principles," she said.

"They should do their due diligence and be transparent in reporting about their supply chain."

"The Chinese government is showing its true colours by pressuring companies to be complicit in abuses rather than working to end violations against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims," Pearson added.

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2021-03-31 03:50:14Z
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Selasa, 30 Maret 2021

White House announces new measures to counter anti-Asian violence - CNA

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Tuesday (Mar 30) announced a set of measures responding to rising anti-Asian violence, including deploying US$49.5 million from COVID-19 relief funds for US community programs that help victims.

White House officials said in a statement that the Department of Justice is also focusing on a rising number of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.

"We can’t be silent in the face of rising violence against Asian Americans," Biden wrote on Twitter. "These attacks are wrong, un-American, and must stop."

The measures come after a shooting in Atlanta earlier this month left eight people dead, six of them Asian-American women.

The shooting stoked fears among those in the Asian-American Pacific Islander community, which has reported a spike in hate crimes since March 2020 when then-President Donald Trump began referring to the novel coronavirus as the "China virus".

READ: Video shows elderly Asian-American woman assaulted on New York street

Biden's new steps include US$49.5 million of pandemic relief funds for "community based, culturally specific services and programs for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault" as well as a new task force dedicated to countering xenophobia against Asians in healthcare.

The Justice Department is also planning new efforts to enforce hate crime laws and report data on racial crimes, the statement said.

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2021-03-30 21:14:46Z
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Data withheld from WHO team probing COVID-19 origins in China: Tedros - CNA

GENEVA: Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday (Mar 30).

The United States, the European Union and other Western countries immediately called for China to give "full access" to independent experts to all data about the original outbreak in late 2019.

In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was "extremely unlikely" as a cause.

One of the team’s investigators has already said China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO-led team, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the global pandemic began.

"In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data," Tedros said. "I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing."

READ: Leaders of 23 countries back pandemic treaty idea for future emergencies

The inability of the WHO mission to conclude yet where or how the virus began spreading in people means that tensions will continue over how the pandemic started - and whether China has helped efforts to find out or, as the United States has alleged, hindered them.

"The international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples," Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Korea, Slovenia, Britain, the United States and the European Union said in a joint statement.

"NOT EXTENSIVE ENOUGH"

Although the team concluded that a leak from a Wuhan laboratory was the least likely hypothesis for the virus that causes COVID-19, Tedros said the issue required further investigation, potentially with more missions to China.

"I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough," he told member states in remarks released by the WHO. "Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions."

READ: Coronavirus likely jumped to humans from bats through 'missing link' animal: WHO report

The WHO team's leader, Peter Ben Embarek, told a press briefing it was "perfectly possible" the virus had been circulating in November or October 2019 around Wuhan, and so potentially spreading abroad earlier than documented so far.

"We got access to quite a lot of data in many different areas, but of course there were areas where we had difficulties getting down to the raw data and there are many good reasons for that," he said, citing privacy laws and other restrictions.

Second phase studies were required, Ben Embarek added.

He said the team had felt political pressure, including from outside China, but that he had never been pressed to remove anything from its final report.

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian expert on the mission, said he was satisfied there was "no obvious evidence" of a problem at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The European Union called the study "an important first step" but renewed criticisms that the origin study had begun too late, that experts had been kept out of China for too long, and that access to data and early samples had fallen short.

In a statement, Walter Stevens, EU ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, called for further study with "timely access to relevant locations and to all relevant human, animal and environmental data available".

BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments

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2021-03-30 17:57:47Z
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Data withheld from WHO team probing Covid-19 origins in China: Tedros - The Straits Times

GENEVA (REUTERS) - Data was withheld from World Health Organisation (WHO) investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday (March 30).

He made the comments to the agency’s member states as a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan, China, in January and February released its final report to the public.

China refused to give raw data on early Covid-19 cases to the WHO-led team, one of the team’s investigators has already said, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the global pandemic began.

“In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data,” Tedros said.

“I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

The conclusions that the virus origins remains incomplete likely means that tensions over how the pandemic started – and whether China has helped or hinder efforts to find out, as the United States has alleged – will continue.

Although the team concluded a leak from a Wuhan-area laboratory was the least likely hypothesis for the virus that causes Covid-19, Tedros said, the matter requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions back to China.

“I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough,” Tedros said.

“Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions.”

The WHO team’s leader, Peter Ben Embarek, told a separate virtual press briefing on Tuesday that it was “perfectly possible” Covid-19 cases were circulating in November or October 2019 around Wuhan, potentially leading to the disease spreading abroad earlier than documented so far.

He said the team felt political pressure, including from outside China, but that he never was pressed to remove anything from its final report.

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2021-03-30 14:36:02Z
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China's top legislative body passes sweeping Hong Kong electoral reforms - South China Morning Post

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2021-03-30 13:05:24Z
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With Suez Canal crisis ended, it's time to add up the damages - The Straits Times

ISMAILIA, EGYPT (BLOOMBERG) - The immediate crisis of the Suez Canal blockage may have ended, but the battle over damages from the waterway's longest closure in almost half a century is just beginning.

The long-term cost of the canal's estimated US$10 billion (S$13.5 billion) a day closure will likely be small, given that global merchandise trade amounts to US$18 trillion a year.

Yet with cargoes delayed for weeks if not months, the blockage could unleash a flood of claims by everyone affected, from the shipping lines to manufacturers and oil producers.

"The legal issues are so enormous," said Ms Alexis Cahalan, a partner at Norton White in Sydney, which specialises in transport law.

"If you can imagine the variety of cargoes that are there - everything from oil, grain, consumer goods like refrigerators to perishable goods - that is where the enormity of the claims may not be known for a time."

The Ever Given was successfully pried from the sand on Monday (March 29), and traffic has resumed through the canal.

But the blockage, which began last Tuesday, was the canal's longest closure since it was shut for eight years following the 1967 Six-Day War and offered a reminder of the fragility of global trade infrastructure and threats to supply lines already stretched by the pandemic.

The Egyptian authorities were desperate to get traffic flowing again through the waterway that's a conduit for about 12 per cent of world trade and around one million barrels of oil a day.

Leth Agencies, one of the top providers of Suez Canal crossing services, said 37 ships exited from Great Bitter Lake by 3.30am local time and 76 are scheduled to go on Tuesday.

South Korea's shipping giant HMM said the HMM Gdansk, one of the world's largest container vessels and which can carry 24,000 20ft boxes, was scheduled to transit through the waterway on Tuesday after being held up since last week.

It may take as long as four days to return the canal to normal, Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie said at a Monday evening press conference.

That assessment may be optimistic, and it could take weeks for the situation to be fully resolved, according to Mr Arthur Richier, senior freight analyst at energy market intelligence firm Vortexa.

Freight rates for the affected shipping routes are already rising due to lower availability of tankers as some stay stuck and some are taking the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope.

"Coordinating the logistics of who gets to go through first and how that's going to be sorted out, I think the Egyptians have quite a job on their hands," Mr John Wobensmith, chief executive officer of Genco Shipping and Trading, said on Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

To prevent future disruptions and help accommodate higher volumes of shipping traffic, the authorities could consider widening the Suez Canal, he said.

The canal's blockage will reduce global reinsurers' earnings, which have already been hit by winter storms in the US and flooding in Australia, as well as the pandemic, according to Fitch Ratings.

Prices for marine reinsurance will rise further as a consequence, it said. Fitch estimates losses may amount to hundreds of millions of euros.

In a potential merry-go-round of legal action, owners of the goods on board the Ever Given and other ships could seek compensation for delays from their insurers, if they have one.

Those insurers for cargo on board can in turn file claims against Ever Given's owners, who will then look to their insurers for protection.

Taiwan's Evergreen Line, which chartered the Ever Given, says Japan's Shoei Kisen Kaisha - the ship's owner - is responsible for any losses. Shoei Kisen has taken some responsibility, but says charterers need to deal with the cargo owners.

Evergreen is being represented by Ince Gordon Dadds as legal adviser, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because they aren't authorised to speak to the media. London-based Ince Gordon Dadds and Evergreen declined to comment.

Taiwan's Evergreen Line, which chartered the Ever Given, says Japan's Shoei Kisen Kaisha - the ship's owner - is responsible for any losses. PHOTO: AFP/SUEZ CANAL AUTHORITY

An official at Shoei Kisen said the company hasn't received any compensation claim from various parties yet.

The firm doesn't have an estimate on the amount of potential claims and is still examining what it is responsible for.

The ship's hull is insured through three Japanese companies.

Responsibility for the giant ship's grounding will be determined after an investigation, the Suez Canal's Mr Rabie said, adding that the authority isn't at fault and that the ship's captain - and not the pilot - was responsible for the vessel.

Inspections of potential damage are continuing to the Ever Given, which has been moved north to the Great Bitter Lake.

Those checks will determine whether the vessel can resume its scheduled service, and what happens to the cargo onboard, Evergreen said in a statement.

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2021-03-30 09:06:32Z
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