Asia
More bodies found in Tibet avalanche; death toll rises to 28
More bodies were found Friday following an avalanche that buried vehicles outside a highway tunnel in Tibet, raising the death toll to 28, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Images from the scene at the exit of the tunnel connecting the city of Nyingchi in Tibet’s southwest with an outlying county showed about half a dozen backhoes digging through deep snow. Reports said around 1,000 rescuers had joined the effort.
Tons of snow and ice collapsed onto the mouth of the tunnel on Tuesday evening, trapping drivers in their vehicles.
Read more: More bodies found in Tibet avalanche, death toll rises to 20
Many of the people were headed home for China’s Lunar New Year holiday, which starts Sunday.
Nyingchi lies at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), about a five-hour drive from the regional capital, Lhasa, along a highway that opened in 2018.
The AP Interview: Envoy says Taiwan learns from Ukraine war
Taiwan has learned important lessons from Ukraine’s war that would help it deter any attack by China or defend itself if invaded, the self-ruled island’s top envoy to the U.S. said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.
Among the lessons: Do more to prepare military reservists and also civilians for the kind of all-of-society fight that Ukrainians are waging against Russia.
“Everything we’re doing now is to prevent the pain and suffering of the tragedy of Ukraine from being repeated in our scenario in Taiwan,” said Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s representative in Washington.
“So ultimately, we seek to deter the use of military force. But in a worst-case scenario, we understand that we have to be better prepared,” Hsiao said.
Hsiao spoke at the quiet, more than 130-year-old hilltop mansion that Taiwan uses for official functions in Washington. She talked on a range of Taiwan-US military, diplomatic and trade relations issues shaped by intensifying rivalries with China.
No Taiwanese flag flew over the building, reflecting Taiwan’s in-between status as a U.S. ally that nonetheless lacks full U.S. diplomatic recognition. The U.S. withdrew that in 1979, on the same day it recognized Beijing as the sole government of China.
The interview came after a year of higher tensions with China, including the Chinese launching ballistic missiles over Taiwan and temporarily suspending most dialogue with the U.S. after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August.
Asked if new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy should make good on his earlier pledge to visit Taiwan as well, Hsaio said. “That will be his decision. But I think ultimately the people of Taiwan have welcomed visitors from around the world.”
Beijing’s leadership, she added, “has no right to decide or define how we engage with the world.”
Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 during a civil war, is claimed by China. The decades-old threat of invasion by China of the self-governed island has sharpened since China cut off communications with the island’s government in 2016. That was after Taiwanese voters elected a government that Beijing suspected of wanting to take Taiwan from self-rule to full independence.
In Washington, Taiwan’s self-rule is one issue that has strong support from both parties.
U.S. administrations for decades have maintained a policy of leaving unsaid whether the U.S. military would come to Taiwan’s defense if China did invade. China’s military shows of force after Pelosi’s visit had some in Congress suggesting it was time for the U.S. to abandon that policy, known as “strategic ambiguity,” and to instead make clear Americans would fight alongside Taiwan.
Asked about those calls Friday, Hsiao only praised the existing policy.
“It has preserved the status quo for decades, or I should say it has preserved peace,” she said.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly volunteered in public comments that the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense, only to have aides walk that back with assurances that strategic ambiguity still prevails.
Read more: China renews threat against Taiwan as island holds drills
Meanwhile, after watching the Ukrainians’ successful hard-scrabble defense against invading Russian forces, Taiwan realizes it needs to load up on Javelins, Stingers, HIMARS and other small, mobile weapons systems, Hsiao said. The Taiwanese and Americans have reached agreement on some of those, she said.
Some security think tanks accuse the U.S. — and the defense industry — of focusing too much of the nation’s billions of dollars in arms deals with Taiwan on advanced, high-dollar aircraft and naval vessels. China’s mightier military could be expected to destroy those big targets at the outset of any attack on Taiwan, some security analysts say.
Taiwan is pushing to make sure that a shift to grittier, lower-tech weapon supplies for Taiwanese ground forces “happens as soon as possible,” Hsaio said. Even with the U.S. and other allies pouring billions of dollars worth of such weapons into Ukraine for the active fight there, straining global arms stocks, ”we are assured by our friends in the United States that Taiwan is a very important priority,” she said.
At home, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen announced last month the government was extending compulsory military service for men from four months to a year, and Taiwan is increasing spending on defense. Hsiao would not directly address a report by Nikkei Asia on Friday that U.S. National Guard members had begun work training in Taiwan, saying only that Taiwan was exploring ways to work with the U.S. Guard members to improve training.
Ukraine’s experience has had lessons for the U.S. and other allies as well, she said, including the importance of a united allied stand behind threatened democracies.
“It’s critical to send a consistent message to the authoritarian leaders that force is never an option ... force will be met by a strong international response, including consequences,” Hsiao said.
Hsiao also spoke on the United States’ push under the Biden administration to boost U.S. production of computer chips. Supply chain disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic have underscored semiconductors’ crucial importance to the U.S. economy and military — and the extent of U.S. reliance on chip imports.
Greater U.S. production will push the nation into more direct trade competition with Taiwan, which is a global leader, especially for advanced semiconductors. Concern that China could interfere with semiconductor shipping through the Taiwan Strait has helped drive the United States’ new production effort.
Hsiao pointed out that Taiwan’s computer chip industry took decades to develop and expressed confidence it “will continue to be an indispensable and irreplaceable contributor to global supply chains in the decades to come.”
She noted Taiwan’s investment of $40 billion in a new semiconductor plant in Arizona, a project big enough that Biden visited the site last month, and expressed frustration at what she called a continuing U.S. financial penalty for Taiwanese companies doing business in the United States.
Read more: China holds large-scale joint strike drills aimed at Taiwan
The United States’ diplomatic non-recognition of Taiwan as a country means that Taiwan – unlike China and other top U.S. trading partners – lacks a tax treaty with the U.S. and thus pays extra taxes.
Surmounting hurdles to fix that would make U.S.-Taiwan business investments “much more successful and sustainable in the long run,” she said.
Bombing derails passenger train in SW Pakistan, injures 15
A bomb planted by suspected militants derailed a passenger train in a remote area in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, injuring at least 15 people on board, officials said. A separatist group later claimed responsibility.
The train was passing through the district of Bolan in Baluchistan province when the bomb went off, according to a district administrator, Samiullah Agha.
The explosion was so powerful that it derailed eight train cars, Agha said. Rescuers transported the injured to a nearby hospital, and engineers were repairing the damaged rail tracks.
Some of the more seriously injured were moved to a military hospital in Quetta, the provincial capital in Baluchistan.
Read more: Suicide blast in southern Pakistan kills 3 Chinese, driver
Hours later, the separatist Baluchistan Liberation Army, which was designated a “terrorist” group by the United States in 2019, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Azad Baloch, a spokesman for the group, said their fighters targeted security forces traveling by train to the garrison city of Rawalpindi in eastern Punjab province.
Government and military officials did not immediately comment on the separatist group's claim.
For over a decade, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by ethnic Baluch separatists seeking autonomy from the Islamabad government or outright independence
Pakistani militants also have a presence in the province, which borders both Afghanistan and Iran.
Read more: Suicide bombing kills 56 at Shiite mosque in Pakistan
More bodies found in Tibet avalanche, death toll rises to 20
More bodies were found Friday following an avalanche that buried vehicles outside a highway tunnel in Tibet, raising the death toll to 20 with eight people still missing.
Images from the scene at the exit of the tunnel connecting the city of Nyingchi in Tibet’s southwest with an outlying county showed about half a dozen backhoes digging through deep snow. Reports said around 1,000 rescuers had joined the effort.
Tons of snow and ice collapsed onto the mouth of the tunnel on Tuesday evening, trapping drivers in their vehicles.
Read more: Search ends in Chinese hotel collapse that killed 17 people
Many of the people were headed home for China’s Lunar New Year holiday that starts Sunday.
Nyingchi lies at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet, about five hours drive from the regional capital Lhasa along a highway that opened in 2018.
UN expert welcomes verdict on Nobel laureate Maria Ressa's tax evasion case
The UN expert on freedom of expression Thursday welcomed the decision by a Philippines' court to acquit journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa and news outlet Rappler of tax evasion charges.
"The acquittal of Maria Ressa and Rappler is a victory for media freedom as well as justice," Irene Khan, UN special rapporteur on the freedom of expression and opinion, said.
"Journalistic work, especially journalistic expression about public and political issues, is an integral part of the right to freedom of expression and guaranteed by international human rights law."
Ressa and Rappler were charged by the former administration in the Philippines with evading tax payments after the news outlet raised foreign funding.
If convicted, the Nobel laureate would have faced up to 10 years imprisonment and fines. Maria and Rappler denied the charges and said the transactions involved legitimate financial mechanisms.
Noting that Maria Ressa continues to face several other charges, including cyber libel, Irene called on the authorities to withdraw all charges against her.
Read more: Nobel winner Maria Ressa, news outlet cleared of tax evasion
"I urge the government to abolish criminal libel, which has no place in a democracy," she said.
The special rapporteur has been in touch with the Pilipino government on this matter for several years.
Special rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.
Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world.
Special Procedures' experts work voluntarily; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
Read more: Journalist Maria Ressa reflects on Nobel Peace Prize win
Irene was appointed UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression on July 17, 2020. She is the first woman to hold this position since the establishment of the mandate in 1993.
Hong Kong to scrap isolation rule for new COVID-19 cases
Hong Kong will scrap its mandatory isolation rule for people infected with COVID-19 from Jan. 30 as part of its strategy to return the southern Chinese city to normalcy, the city's leader said on Thursday.
For most of the pandemic over the last three years, Hong Kong has aligned itself with China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, requiring those who tested positive to undergo quarantine. Many residents once had to be sent to hospitals or government-run quarantine facilities even when their symptoms were mild.
Currently, infected persons are allowed to isolate at home for a minimum of five days and can go out once they test negative for two consecutive days. After the rule is dropped, the mask mandate will be the only major COVID-19 restriction left in the city.
Read more: China halts visas for Japan, South Korea in COVID-19 spat
Chief Executive John Lee told lawmakers he made the decision based partly on the city's high vaccination and infection rates, saying the local community has a strong "immunity barrier.”
“As most infected persons only suffer mild symptoms, the government should shift from a clear-cut, mandatory approach to one that allows residents to make their own decisions and take their own responsibilities when we manage the pandemic,” he said.
He said it is a step all countries make on their paths to normalcy and that Hong Kong has reached this stage now, adding that the city's pandemic situation had not worsened after it started to reopen its border with mainland China about two weeks ago.
COVID-19 will be handled as another kind of upper respiratory disease, he said.
Edwin Tsui, the controller of the Centre for Health Protection, told a news conference that people with asymptomatic infections can go out freely or return to their workplace but infected students should not go to school until they obtain a negative test result. Those who suffer from COVID-19 symptoms should avoid leaving home, he said.
Residents will no longer need to report to the government when they test positive, he added.
Read more: China suspends social media accounts of over 1,000 critics of govt’s Covid-19 policies
Hong Kong's daily tally has fallen to 3,800 cases from 19,700 over the past two weeks. With many infected residents only having mild symptoms, most choose to isolate at home. The figures don’t include those who never report their cases but stay at home to avoid spreading the virus to others.
The city has one government-run facility in operation for those unsuitable for home quarantine, according to a government reply to a lawmaker's inquiries on Wednesday. But it did not elaborate on the facility's occupancy rate. The Associated Press has asked the government about such data.
Hong Kong, which once had some of the world's strictest COVID-19 rules, has been easing various restrictions to revive its economy, including removing an isolation rule for close contacts of those who tested positive for COVID-19 and vaccination requirements to enter certain venues.
India considering banning govt-identified ‘fake news’ on social media
The Indian government is considering blocking news it identifies as “false” on social media.
A draft proposal of new IT regulations revealed this week stated that the Indian government would not allow social media platforms to contain any content that it deems to be incorrect, according to NDTV.
This is only the most recent in a slew of actions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration to control major tech companies.
Read more: UN Human Rights Council adopts 'fake news' resolution
Any information identified as “fake or fraudulent” by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), or by any other agency authorised for fact-checking by the government or “by its department in which such business is transacted”, would be prohibited according to the draft.
The government has also frequently engaged in disputes with different social media platforms when they disregarded requests for the removal of content or accounts that were allegedly propagating misinformation.
For spreading false information and endangering national security, the Indian government has blocked 104 YouTube channels, 45 videos, four Facebook accounts, three Instagram accounts, five Twitter handles and six websites
Read more: Instagram fact-check: Can a new flagging tool stop fake news?
Earlier in October, the government made the announcement that a panel would be set up to hear complaints from users about social media companies’ content moderation decisions. These businesses are already required to appoint internal grievance redress officers and executives to work with law enforcement officials.
Transgender men look for inclusion in conservative Pakistan
Aman, a 22-year-old transgender man from the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, says he was always close to his father. When he was little and it was cold out, his father held his hands to warm them. When he was at university, his father would wait until he got home to eat dinner together, regardless of how late it was.
Now they are cut off. Aman's decision to live as a man has cost him everything. His parents and five siblings no longer speak to him. He dropped out of university and had to leave home. He has attempted suicide three times.
Trans men face deep isolation in Pakistan. The country, with a conservative Muslim majority, has entrenched beliefs on gender and sexuality, so trans people are often considered outcasts. But trans women have a degree of toleration because of cultural traditions. Trans women in public office, on news programs, in TV shows and films, even on the catwalk, have raised awareness about a marginalized and misunderstood community.
The Pakistani movie and Oscar contender “Joyland” caused an uproar last year for its depiction of a relationship between a married man and a trans woman, but it also shone a spotlight on the country’s transgender community.
Trans men, however, remain largely invisible, with little mobilization, support or resources. Trans women have growing activist networks — but, according to Aman and others, they rarely incorporate or deal with trans men and their difficulties.
“It’s the worst,” said Aman. “We are already disowned by our families and blood relatives, then the people we think are our people also exclude us.”
Trans women have been able to carve out their space in the culture because of the historic tradition of “khawaja sira,” originally a term for male eunuchs working in South Asia’s Mughal empire hundreds of years ago. Today, the term is generally associated with people who were born male and identify as female. Khawaja sira culture also has a traditional support system of “gurus,” prominent figures who lead others.
But there is no space within the term or the culture surrounding it for people who were born female and identify as male.
“Every khawaja sira is transgender, but not all transgenders are khawaja sira,” said Mani, a representative for the trans male community in Pakistan. “People have been aware of the khawaja sira community for a long time, but not of trans men.”
He set up a nonprofit group in 2018 because he saw nothing being done for trans men, their well-being or mental health.
Trans people have seen some progress in protecting their rights. Supreme Court rulings allow them to self-identify as a third gender, neither male nor female, and have underscored they have the same rights as all Pakistani citizens.
Although Mani was involved in the trans rights bill, most lobbying and advocacy work has been from transgender women since it became law.
“Nobody talks about trans men or how they are impacted by the act,” said Mani. "But this is not the right time to talk about this because of the campaign by religious extremists (to veto changes to the act). I don’t want to cause any harm to the community.”
Another reason for trans men’s low visibility is that females lead a more restricted life than males in Pakistan, with limits on what they can do, where they can go and how they can live. Family honor is tied to the behavior of women and girls, so they have less room to behave outside society’s norms. On a practical level, even if a girl wanted to meet trans people and get involved in the community, she wouldn’t be able to because she wouldn’t be allowed out, said Aman.
Coming from a privileged and educated family, Aman said his parents indulged him as a child, letting him behave in ways seen as male and dress in a boyish way. He wore a boy’s uniform to school.
But there came a time when he was expected to live and look like a girl. That meant fewer freedoms and the prospect of marriage. He didn’t want that life and knew there were operations to change his gender. But his father told him he was too young and would have to wait until he was 18, apparently hoping he would grow out of it.
Aman had nobody to speak to about his gender identity struggles. He used social media and search engines, making contact with a trans man in India who connected him with a WhatsApp group of trans men in Pakistan.
Aman grew his hair long and dressed like a girl “just to survive” while still at home, he said. He also felt he shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the family’s honor.
“These restrictions created a war in my mind,” he said. “You have to socialize, and it was difficult for me because I had to socialize as a girl.”
He wasn’t allowed male friends because of the taboos around mixing with the opposite sex, nor was he allowed female friends because his parents feared it would lead to a lesbian relationship.
Still, Aman set goals to get educated, earn money and be independent, planning eventually to live as a man. By 2021, he was on hormone therapy and his voice was changing.
But it all changed when a family member asked outright if Aman was changing his gender. The question inflamed all the doubts and worries his parents already had about his steps to transition. They disowned him, saying he could no longer live under their roof if he wanted to live as a man.
“They said everything can be tolerated but we can’t tolerate this,” Aman said. His mother said it would hurt his siblings and their marital prospects. His sisters locked him in a bathroom once. Only his older brother supported him.
Aman moved out and began living alone – and fully as a man.
Mani has helped, giving him an office job at the non-governmental organization. Still, Aman barely gets by and faces constant problems. One is that he hasn’t changed his gender to male officially on his ID card, which he needs to vote, open a bank account, apply for jobs and access government benefits including health care.
He went once to NADRA, the government agency responsible for ID cards, but there the officials harassed him. They inspected him, talked derisively about him, and demanded a bribe. One official felt his chest.
He feels isolated.
“I’m satisfied with my gender, but I’m not happy to live anymore,” he said. “I love my family. I need my father, I need my brother.”
Imran Khan's party dissolves assembly in Pakistani province
The party of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday dissolved a provincial assembly in the country’s northwest, where it held majority seats. Its rival, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party, criticized the move, saying it meant to deepen the political crisis and force early parliamentary elections.
As opposition leader, Khan has been campaigning for early elections and has claimed — without providing evidence — that his ouster last April in a no-confidence vote in Parliament was illegal.
He has also accused his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the Pakistani military and the United States of orchestrating his ouster. Sharif, army officials and Washington have all dismissed the allegations.
Khan has also banked on his popularity and wide grassroot support to force early elections, and has since his ouster staged rallies across the country, calling for the vote. But Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League have repeatedly dismissed the demands, saying elections will be held as scheduled — later in 2023 — when the current parliament completes its five-year term.
On Wednesday, Ghulam Ali, provincial governor in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, dissolved the local assembly there, just days after another Khan ally, provincial lawmaker Pervez Elahi, dissolved the assembly in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, in eastern Pakistan.
Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party was in power in both provinces. The dissolution of the chambers will lead to snap elections in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab — and may lead to the party being reelected in both provinces — but will unlikely effect any change on the national level.
Read more: Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan wounded in firing at anti-govt rally
Sharif's government maintains that the tactics of the 70-year-old Khan are damaging the country's economy. Pakistan has struggled with the aftermath of unprecedented floods that devastated the country last summer and which experts say were exacerbated by climate change. Cash-strapped Pakistan is also facing a serious financial crisis and unabating militant violence.
Khan, a former cricket star turned Islamist politician, was wounded in a gun attack while leading a rally toward the capital, Islamabad, last November. One of Khan's supporters was killed and several others were wounded in the shooting.
Khan accused Sharif's government of being behind the attack; authorities have denied the allegation. The gunman was arrested on the scene.
Since the assassination attempt, Khan has been leading his political campaign from his hometown of Lahore, the capital of Punjab.
Read more: Imran Khan accuses Pak army of recreating 1971-like situation
Also on Wednesday, suspected militants ambushed a security convoy in a remote area in southwestern Pakistan, near the Iranian border, killing four soldiers, the military said. The army statement said the attackers used Iran's territory to launch the attack and that Islamabad has asked Tehran to arrest the assailants.
7.0 earthquake shakes east Indonesia
A strong earthquake shook eastern Indonesia on Wednesday, with no damage immediately reported and no tsunami warning issued.
Some residents tried to escape from houses after the magnitude 7.2 earthquake.
The U.S. Geological Survey said it occurred 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) deep under the sea, centered 150 kilometers (93.2 miles) northwest of Tobelo in North Maluku province.
No tsunami warning was issued by Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu briefly said there was a potential threat to nearby Indonesian coasts but lifted the notice soon afterward.
Pius Ohoiwutun, a resident of Tobelo said that some people was running from houses when the quake shook.
“I felt a little swaying as the lamps also said. Some people tried to escape from their houses,” Ohoiwutun said on Wednesday.
A magnitude 6.1 quake also shook eastern Indonesia earlier Wednesday morning. No damage was reported.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago and a home of more than 270 million people, is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Basin.
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake on Nov. 21 killed at least 331 people in West Java. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed about 4,340 people.
In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.