asia
Migrant workers who helped build modern China have scant or no pensions, and can't retire
At 53, Guan Junling is too old to get hired at factories anymore. But for migrant workers like her, not working is not an option.
For decades, they have come from farming villages to find work in the cities. Toiling in sweatshops and building apartment complexes they could never afford to live in, they played a vital role in China's transformation into an economic powerhouse.
As they grow older, the first generation of migrant workers is struggling to find jobs in a slowing economy. Many are financially strapped, so they have to keep looking.
"There is no such thing as a 'retirement' or 'pensions' for rural people. You can only rely on yourself and work," Guan said. "When can you stop working? It's really not until you have to lie in bed and you can't do anything."
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She now relies on housecleaning gigs, working long days to squirrel away a little money in case of a health emergency. Migrant workers can get subsidized health care in their hometowns, but they have little or no coverage elsewhere. If Guan needs to go to hospital in Beijing, she has to pay out of pocket.
As China's population ages, so are its migrant workers. About 85 million were over 50 in 2022, the latest year for which data is available, accounting for 29% of all migrant workers and up from 15% a decade earlier. With limited or no pensions and health insurance, they need to keep working.
About 75% said they would work beyond the age of 60 in a questionnaire distributed to 2,500 first-generation migrant workers between 2018 to 2022, according to Qiu Fengxian, a scholar on rural sociology who described her research in a talk last year. The first-generation refers to those born in the 1970s or earlier.
Older workers are being hit by a double whammy. Jobs have dried up in construction due to a downturn in the real estate market and in factories because of automation and the slowing economy. Age discrimination is common, so jobs tend to go to younger people.
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"For young people, of course, you can still find a job, positions are available, though the wage is not high enough," said Zhang Chenggang of Beijing's Capital University of Economics and Business, where he directs a center researching new forms of employment.
"But for older migrant workers, there simply are no positions," said Zhang, who conducted field studies at four labor markets across China late last year. "Now, the problem is that no matter how low the wage is, as long as someone pays, you will take the job."
Some job recruiters contacted by AP said older workers don't work well or have underlying illnesses. Others declined to answer and hung up.
Many are turning to temporary work. Zhang Zixing was looking for gigs on a cold winter day late last year at a sprawling outdoor labor market on the outskirts of Beijing.
He said he was fired from a job delivering packages because of his age about three years ago, when he reached 55. In December, he was earning 260 yuan (about $35) a day installing cables at construction sites.
Zhang Quanshou, a village official in Henan province and a delegate to China's National People's Congress, said some older migrant workers are just looking for work near their hometowns, while others still head to larger cities.
"Some older migrant workers are finding temporary jobs, so it is important to build the temporary job market and provide a better platform for such services," Zhang, the Communist Party secretary of the village, said in an emailed response to questions during a recent annual meeting of the Congress.
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Guan, who comes from a rice-farming region in the north, worked on a clothing factory assembly line until she was laid off when she was in her 40s. She then worked various jobs in different cities, winding up in Beijing in 2018.
She works seven days a week, partly because she's afraid labor agencies won't call again if she turns an offer down.
Over February's Lunar New Year holiday, when migrant workers traditionally go home to visit their families, she stayed in Beijing as a caretaker for an elderly woman, because the woman needed help and she needed the money.
"People either want someone who's educated or young, and I don't meet either of those requirements," said Guan, who dropped out after middle school because her parents had only enough money to educate their son. "But then I think, regardless of how other people look at me, I have to survive."
Guan worries jobs will be even harder to find when she reaches 55. The retirement age for women in China is 50 or 55, depending on the company and type of work. For men, it is 60.
Lu Guoquan, a trade union official, has proposed relaxing age limits for jobs, judging workers by their physical condition instead of their age and making it easier for older people to find work through labor markets and online platforms.
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"A large number of farmers have entered cities, making an important contribution to the modernization of our country," said his proposal, made to an advisory body during the recent national congress and seen by the AP.
As workers grow older, "they are gradually becoming a relatively vulnerable group in the labor market and face a number of thresholds and problems in continuing to work," it said.
Lu, director of the general office of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, declined an interview request.
Duan Shuangzhu has spent 25 years collecting trash in one Beijing neighborhood after giving up a life of raising sheep and cows in north China's Shanxi province when he was in his 40s. He gets up at 3:30 a.m. seven days a week to make his rounds. For that, he earns 3,300 yuan ($460) a month and has a basement room to live in.
Duan's wife stayed on the farm, where she looks after their grandchildren. Duan has managed to save money for himself, his children and his grandchildren, but never paid into a pension system, directing what little he earns to his family.
That fits the pattern Qiu found in her research, which she published in a book last year. Older migrant workers moved to the cities to improve the lives of their children and other relatives, not themselves, she found. Most have limited or no savings, and few have climbed the economic ladder. They hoped their children would, but most ended up as migrant workers, too.
Most migrant workers' earnings were spent on their children's marriages, homes and education, Qiu said in her talk. "Basically, they did not begin working for themselves and planning for their own late years until the age of 55."
Duan, at 68, has no plans to quit.
"As long as I can work every day, it's enough to survive," he said, standing next to a set of community rubbish bins, color-coded for recycling. "I didn't grow up in a wealthy family — just filling my stomach each day is enough for me."
Japanese authorities raid a factory making health supplements linked to 5 deaths
Japanese government health officials raided a factory Saturday producing health supplements that they say have killed at least five people and hospitalized more than 100 others.
About a dozen people wearing dark suits solemnly walked into the Osaka plant of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. in the raid shown widely on Japanese TV news, including public broadcaster NHK.
The company says little is known about the exact cause of the sicknesses, which include kidney failure. An investigation into the products is underway in cooperation with government health authorities.
The supplements all used “benikoji,” a kind of red mold. Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals’ pink pills called Benikoji Choleste Help were billed as helping lower cholesterol levels.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, based in the western Japanese city of Osaka, said about a million packages were sold over the past three fiscal years. It also sold benikoji to other manufacturers, and some products have been exported. The supplements could be bought at drug stores without a prescription from a doctor.
Reports of health problems surfaced in 2023, although benikoji has been used in various products for years.
Company president Akihiro Kobayashi has apologized for not having acted sooner. The recall came March 22, two months after the company had received official medical reports about the problem.
On Friday, the company said five people had died and 114 people were being treated in hospitals after taking the products. Japan's health ministry says the supplements are responsible for the deaths and illnesses, and warned that the number of those affected could grow.
Some analysts blame the recent deregulation initiatives, which simplified and sped up approval for health products to spur economic growth. But deaths from a mass-produced item is rare in Japan, as government checks over consumer products are relatively stringent.
The government has ordered a review of the approval system in response to the supplement-related illnesses. A report is due in May.
In Indonesia, deforestation is intensifying disasters from severe weather and climate change
Roads turned to murky brown rivers, homes were swept away by strong currents and bodies were pulled from mud during deadly flash floods and landslides after torrential rains hit West Sumatra in early March, marking one of the latest deadly natural disasters in Indonesia.
Government officials blamed the floods on heavy rainfall, but environmental groups have cited the disaster as the latest example of deforestation and environmental degradation intensifying the effects of severe weather across Indonesia.
“This disaster occurred not only because of extreme weather factors, but because of the ecological crisis,” Indonesian environmental rights group Indonesian Forum for the Environment wrote in a statement. “If the environment continues to be ignored, then we will continue to reap ecological disasters.”
A vast tropical archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is home to the world's third-largest rainforest, with a variety of endangered wildlife and plants, including orangutans, elephants, giant and blooming forest flowers. Some live nowhere else.
For generations the forests have also provided livelihoods, food, and medicine while playing a central role in cultural practices for millions of Indigenous residents in Indonesia.
Since 1950, more than 74 million hectares (285,715 square miles) of Indonesian rainforest — an area twice the size of Germany — have been logged, burned or degraded for development of palm oil, paper and rubber plantations, mining and other commodities according to Global Forest Watch.
Indonesia is the biggest producer of palm oil, one of the largest exporters of coal and a top producer of pulp for paper. It also exports oil and gas, rubber, tin and other resources. And it also has the world’s largest reserves of nickel — a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other goods needed for the green energy transition.
Indonesia has consistently ranked as one of the largest global emitters of plant-warming greenhouse gases, with its emissions stemming from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and peatland fires, according to the Global Carbon Project.
It’s also highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, including extreme events such as floods and droughts, long-term changes from sea level rise, shifts in rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures, according to the World Bank. In recent decades the country has already seen the effects of climate change: More intense rains, landslides and floods during rainy season, and more fires during a longer dry season.
But forests can help play a vital role in reducing the impact of some extreme weather events, said Aida Greenbury, a sustainability expert focusing on Indonesia.
Flooding can be slowed by trees and vegetation soaking up rainwater and reducing erosion. In dry season, forests release moisture that helps mitigate the effects of droughts, including fires.
But when forests diminish, those benefits do as well.
A 2017 study reported that forest conversion and deforestation expose bare soil to rainfall, causing soil erosion. Frequent harvesting activities — such as done on palm oil plantations — and the removal of ground vegetation leads to further soil compaction, causing rain to run off the surface instead of entering groundwater reservoirs. Downstream erosion also increases sediment in rivers, making rivers shallower and increasing flood risks, according to the research.
After the deadly floods in Sumatra in early March, West Sumatra Gov. Mahyeldi Ansharullah said there were strong indications of illegal logging around locations affected by floods and landslides. That, coupled with extreme rainfall, inadequate drainage systems and improper housing development contributed to the disaster, he said.
Experts and environmental activists have pointed to deforestation worsening disasters in other regions of Indonesia as well: In 2021 environmental activists partially blamed deadly floods in Kalimantan on environmental degradation caused by large-scale mining and palm oil operations. In Papua, deforestation was partially blamed for floods and landslides that killed over a hundred people in 2019.
There have been some signs of progress: In 2018 Indonesian President Joko Widodo put a three-year freeze on new permits for palm oil plantations. And the rate of deforestation slowed between 2021-2022, according to government data.
But experts warn that it’s unlikely deforestation in Indonesia will stop anytime soon as the government continues to move forward with new mining and infrastructure projects such as new nickel smelters and cement factories.
“A lot of land use and land-based investment permits have already been given to businesses, and a lot of these areas are already prone to disasters,” said Arie Rompas, an Indonesia-based forestry expert at Greenpeace.
President-elect Prabowo Subianto, who is scheduled to take office in October, has promised to continue Widodo’s policy of development, include large-scale food estates, mining and other infrastructure development that are all linked to deforestation.
Environmental watchdogs also warn that environmental protections in Indonesia are weakening, including the passing of the controversial Omnibus Law, which eliminated an article of the Forestry Law regarding the minimum area of forest that must be maintained at development projects.
“The removal of that article makes us very worried (about deforestation) for the years to come,” said Rompas.
While experts and activists recognize that development is essential for Indonesia’s economy to continue to go, they argue that it should be done in a way that considers the environment and incorporates better land planning.
“We can’t continue down the same path we’ve been on,” said sustainability expert Greenbury. “We need to make sure that the soil, the land in the forest doesn’t become extinct.”
Hainan to have world's best free trade port by 2035: Chinese academic
Hainan, China’s largest economic special zone is going to be the next best free trade port hub in the world by 2035, said Professor of Law School of Hainan University and Deputy Director of Hainan South China Sea Policy and Law Research Center Zhang Liangfu.
He said this in a programme 'Introduction to Hainan Free Trade Port' at the Sanya city of Hainan province where 31 journalists from 25 countries including staff correspondent of United News of Bangladesh from Bangladesh attended. The professor also answered the questions of the journalists.
He said the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to build Hainan Island into a free trade pilot zone, supporting Hainan’s gradual exploration and steady advancement of the construction of a Chinese-style free trade port, and establishing a policy and institutional system for free trade ports in stages and steps in April 2018.
Saying that the free trade port is hailed as the most advanced form of openness in the world today, he said the construction of a free trade port in Hainan represents China’s strategic choice to explore and promote a higher level of opening up, demonstrating China’s unwavering determination and confidence in advancing opening up.
He informed that the initial establishment of a policy and institutional system for free trade ports focused on trade liberalization and investment facilitation will be finalized by 2025.
"The institutional system and operational model of the free trade port will be more mature by 2035," he also said.
Israel and Hamas dig in as pressure builds for a cease-fire in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday blasted a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a Gaza cease-fire that his country's top ally, the United States, chose not to block. He said the resolution had emboldened Hamas and he vowed to press ahead with the war.
As the war grinds through a sixth month, both Israel and Hamas have rejected cease-fire efforts, each insisting its version of victory is within reach. The passage of the U.N. resolution has also escalated tensions between the U.S. and Israel over the conduct of the war.
Netanyahu has said Israel can only achieve its aims of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages if it expands its ground offensive to the southern city of Rafah, where over half of Gaza’s population has sought refuge, many in crowded tent camps. The U.S. has said a major assault on Rafah would be a mistake.
Hamas says it will hold onto the hostages until Israel agrees to a more permanent cease-fire, withdraws its forces from Gaza and releases hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants. It said late Monday that it rejected a recent proposal that fell short of those demands — which, if fulfilled, would allow it to claim an extremely costly victory.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the announcement “proved clearly that Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations toward a deal and served as unfortunate testimony to the damage of the Security Council decision.”
“Israel will not surrender to Hamas’ delusional demands and will continue to act to achieve all the goals of the war: releasing all the hostages, destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and ensuring that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.”
Israel has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. The fighting has left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, displaced most its residents and driven a third of its population of 2.3 million to the brink of famine.
The Israeli military announced Tuesday that an airstrike earlier this month killed Marwan Issa, the deputy leader of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza who helped plan the Oct. 7 attack. Issa is the highest-ranking Hamas leader to have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. Military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Issa was killed when fighter jets struck an underground compound in central Gaza between March 9 and 10.
An Israeli strike late Monday on a residential building in Rafah where three displaced families were sheltering killed at least 16 people, including nine children and four women, according to hospital records and relatives of the deceased. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies arrive at a hospital.
In the face of Hamas' demands for a more permanent cease-fire, Netanyahu has vowed to resume Israel’s offensive after any hostage release and keep fighting until the militant group is destroyed. But he has provided few details about what would follow any such victory and has largely rejected a postwar vision outlined by the U.S.
That approach has brought him into increasingly open conflict with President Joe Biden’s administration, which has expressed mounting concern over civilian casualties — though it has continued to supply Israel with crucial military aid and back Israel’s aim of destroying Hamas.
The passage of Monday's resolution by the U.N. Security Council resolution further deepened the divisions. The resolution called for the release of all hostages held in Gaza but did not condition the cease-fire on it. The Biden administration, which vetoed previous U.N. resolutions calling for a cease-fire, abstained in Monday’s vote, allowing it to pass.
In response, Netanyahu cancelled a planned visit by Israeli officials to Washington during which the U.S. side was set to propose alternatives to a ground assault in Rafah.
The move raised criticism in Israeli media that Netanyahu was straining Israel's most important alliance in order to placate hard-liners in his governing coalition.
“He is prepared to sacrifice Israel’s relations with the United States for a short-lived political-media coup. He has completely lost it,” Ben Caspit, a prominent columnist in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, wrote.
He said Netanyahu has been trying U.S. patience by dragging his feet on ensuring more humanitarian aid gets into Gaza and on drawing up post-war plans. “Now, instead of doing everything to placate them, he is flailing about like a baby throwing a tantrum.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in Washington on a separate trip, held talks Tuesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and with top U.S. defense leaders.
Ahead of the meeting, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described civilian casualties in Gaza as “far too high” and aid deliveries as “far too low.” But he also repeated the belief that Israel has the right to defend itself and the U.S. would always be there to help.
Gallant said he told Blinken "that Israel will not cease operating in Gaza until the return of all the hostages. Only a decisive victory will bring to an end of this war.”
Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said the U.N. resolution showed that Israel faces “an unprecedented (level of) political isolation” and was “losing its political cover” at the Security Council. He spoke at a news conference in Tehran after talks with officials in Iran, a key ally of Hamas.
The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border and attacked communities in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. It is still believed to be holding about 100 hostages and the remains of 35 others, after most of the rest were freed in November in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent several weeks trying to negotiate another cease-fire and hostage release, but those efforts appeared to have stalled.
Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, which is currently hosting the talks, told reporters that the negotiations were ongoing, without providing details.
Hamas has previously proposed a phased process in which it would release all the remaining hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the opening of its borders for aid and reconstruction, and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants serving life sentences.
Indonesia's top court begins hearing election appeals of 2 losing candidates alleging fraud
Indonesia’s top court began hearing appeals Wednesday against the presidential election results lodged by two losing candidates who allege widespread irregularities and fraud at the polls, demanding a revote.
The Feb. 14 presidential election results were announced March 20. The winner, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, received more than 96 million votes, or 58.6%, according to the General Election Commission, known as KPU.
Former Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan, who received nearly 41 million votes, or 24.9%, filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court on March 21, a day after the official results announcement. Another candidate, former Central Java Gov. Ganjar Pranowo, who was backed by the governing Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, received the smallest share of votes at 27 million, or 16.5%. His legal team filed a complaint to the court on March 23.
Baswedan’s lawsuit claimed that irregularities occurred before, during and after the election that resulted in Subianto’s victory, and his legal team will reveal its evidence and arguments in the court hearings.
Subianto chose as his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the son of the popular outgoing president Joko Widodo. The Constitutional Court had made an exception to the minimum age requirement of 40 for candidates. Baswedan and Pranowo both criticized 37-year-old Raka’s participation in the election.
Anwar Usman, who was the court’s chief justice when the exception was made, is Widodo’s brother-in-law. An ethics panel later forced Usman to resign for failing to recuse himself and for making last-minute changes to the candidacy requirements, but allowed him to remain on the court as long as he does not participate in election-related cases.
The election complaints were heard separately Wednesday by the court, where Baswedan had the first turn in the morning and Pranowo was slated in the afternoon.
“We witness with deep concern a series of irregularities that have tarnished the integrity of our democracy,” Baswedan told the court. He specifically pointed to the court's decision allowing Raka to run despite the previously established criteria.
He said there are also disturbing practices where regional officials are pressured or given rewards to influence the direction of political choices, as well as misuse of the state’s social assistance, which is actually intended for people’s welfare, “is instead used as a transactional tool to win one of the candidates.”
“If we do not make corrections, the practices that occurred yesterday will be considered normal and become habits, then become culture and ultimately become national character,” Baswedan said before the eight-judge panel. “The Indonesian people are waiting with full attention, and we entrust all this to the Constitutional Court who is brave and independent to uphold justice.”
The verdict, expected on April 22, cannot be appealed. It will be decided by eight justices instead of the full nine-member court because Usman is required to recuse himself.
In the past two elections, the Constitutional Court has rejected Subianto’s bids to overturn Widodo’s victories and dismissed his claims of widespread fraud as groundless. Subianto refused to accept the results of the 2019 presidential election, which pitted him against Widodo, leading to violence that left seven dead in Jakarta.
Widodo has reached his term limit and could not run again this year. He has faced criticism for throwing his support behind Subianto, who has links to alleged human rights abuses. Indonesian presidents are expected to remain neutral in elections to replace them.
Hefty social aid from the government was disbursed in the middle of the campaign — far more than the amounts spent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Widodo distributed funds in person in a number of provinces, in a move that drew particular scrutiny.
Aid groups describe an 'unimaginable' situation after visiting a packed Gaza hospital
Aid groups that visited a packed Gaza hospital described an “unimaginable” situation in which large open wounds were left untreated.
An emergency medical team organized by three aid groups spent two weeks carrying out surgeries and other care at the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis. The southern city has seen heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants since the start of the year.
In a statement released Monday, the team said healthcare workers had been forced to evacuate or were unable to access the hospital. It said Israeli restrictions had led to shortages of medical supplies, including basics like gauze and plates and screws used to stabilize broken bones.
The visiting surgeons “reported large infected open wounds on patients and having to administer emergency nutritional supplies to patients as the lack of food was jeopardizing patient treatment.”
International aid officials say the entire population of the Gaza Strip — 2.3 million people — is suffering from food insecurity and that famine is imminent in the hard-hit north.
More than 32,000 people have been killed in the territory, and more than 74,000 wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its counts. It says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Some 1,200 people were killed on Oct. 7 when Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack out of Gaza, triggering the war, and abducted another 250 people. Hamas is still believed to be holding some 100 Israelis hostage, as well as the remains of 30 others.
Thailand sends aid to war-torn Myanmar, but critics say it will only help junta
Thailand delivered its first batch of humanitarian aid to war-torn Myanmar on Monday, in what officials hope will be a continuing effort to ease the plight of millions of people displaced by fighting.
But critics charge that the aid will benefit only people in areas under the Myanmar military’s control, providing it with a propaganda boost while leaving the vast majority of displaced people in contested areas without access to assistance.
Myanmar is wracked by a nationwide armed conflict that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule. The fighting has displaced millions of people and battered the economy.
Thailand sent ten trucks over the border from the northern province of Tak, carrying some 4,000 packages of aid to three towns in Kayin State, also known as Karen State, where it will be distributed to approximately 20,000 displaced people.
The parcels contained aid worth around 5 million baht ($138,000), mostly food, instant beverages and other basic items such as toiletries.
More than 2.8 million people in Myanmar are displaced, according to U.N. agencies, most by fighting that arose after the army’s takeover. They say 18.6 million people, including 6 million children, require humanitarian aid.
Carl Skau, Chief Operating Officer of the U.N.’s World Food Programme, said earlier this month that one in four of the displaced is at risk of acute food insecurity.
The initiative for what has been called a humanitarian corridor is being carried out by the Thai Red Cross, with funding from Thailand’s Foreign Ministry and logistical support from the army, which traditionally has played a major role in border activities.
Officials from Thailand and Myanmar's Kayin State attended a send-off ceremony, which was presided over by Thai Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow. Myanmar's Red Cross will handle distribution of the aid.
Drivers from Myanmar took the trucks across the 2nd Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, which crosses the Moei River on the border.
"That corridor puts humanitarian aid into the hands of the junta because it goes into the hands of the junta-controlled Myanmar Red Cross,” Tom Andrews, the U.N. independent human rights expert on Myanmar, said last week.
“So we know that the junta takes these resources, including humanitarian, and weaponizes them, uses them for their own military strategic advantage. The fact of the matter is, is that the reason that humanitarian aid is in such desperate need is precisely because of the junta.”
Andrews said the areas in desperate need are "conflict areas in which the junta has absolutely no influence or control whatsoever. So those are the areas we need to focus on.”
Large areas of the country, especially frontier areas, are now contested or controlled by anti-military resistance forces, including pro-democracy fighters allied with armed ethnic minority organizations that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades.
Thai officials say the process of distribution will be monitored by the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management to ensure it reaches people fairly and equally.
Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak said after the ceremony that the aid is expected to be delivered to the three towns the same day, and that Myanmar will send photos as proof it has been delivered.
“I would like to emphasize that this is truly humanitarian aid and not related to the politics or conflicts in Myanmar. I think, now, people should think about the interests of the Myanmar people as a priority,” he said. “Of course, if the initiative today is carried out smoothly, and meets the objectives that we set, Thailand as a neighbor will see how we can expand the help to other areas.”
The humanitarian corridor project was initiated by Thailand with support from Myanmar and other fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations during an ASEAN Foreign Ministers Retreat in Laos in January.
Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara had said ASEAN needs to actively push to implement what it calls the Five-Points Consensus, which it agreed to just a few months after the army’s 2021 takeover.
The agreement called for an immediate end to violence, 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.
But Myanmar’s generals, despite initially assenting to the consensus, failed to act on it, leaving ASEAN looking powerless.
Dulyapak Preecharush, a professor of Southeast Asia Studies at Bangkok's Thammasat University, said the aid initiative is a good start for Thailand, which has been quiet and inactive” about Myanmar.
“The readiness of Thailand to deliver the aid is not an issue, but when the aid is delivered to Myanmar, it will face obstacles from violent fighting and different stakeholders who will have their gains and losses.”
Sihasak said Thailand hopes the aid will be distributed equally and transparently, and that the delivery of the aid will help create a “good atmosphere” that will contribute to the peace process in Myanmar.
North Korea says Japan's prime minister proposed summit with leader Kim Jong Un
North Korea said Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has proposed a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, made the comments in a state media dispatch. She said Kishida used an unspecified channel to convey his position that he wants to meet Kim Jong Un in person at an early date.
Kim Yo Jong said whether to improve bilateral ties hinges on Japan. She said if Kishida sticks to his push to resolve the alleged past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, he cannot avoid criticism that he would only pursue talks to boost his popularity.
Some experts say North Korea is seeking to improve ties with Japan as a way to weaken a trilateral Tokyo-Seoul-Washington security partnership, while Kishida also wants better ties with North Korea to increase his declining approval rating at home.
The U.S. and South Korea have been expanding their military drills and trilateral exercises involving Japan in response to North Korea's provocative run of weapons tests since 2022.
Earlier Monday, North Korea's state media that Kim Jong Un supervised a tank exercise and encouraged his armored forces to sharpen war preparations in the face of growing tensions with South Korea.
Bodies of 3 Rohingya refugees found as Indonesia ends rescue for capsized boat
The bodies of three Rohingya refugees were found in the sea as the Indonesian authorities ended a search for survivors from a boat that capsized near Aceh province, the provincial search and rescue agency said Sunday.
Fishers and a search and rescue team rescued 75 people from the boat on Thursday — 44 men, 22 women and nine children — after they huddled on its overturned hull throughout the night.
A few were taken to a local hospital for treatment, but most were sent to a temporary shelter in the Aceh Barat district. Several told UNHCR workers they had lost family members on the journey.
Fishers first spotted the three bodies and reported them to local authorities on Saturday.
“After we searched the area, the team found three bodies, two adult women and one boy. They are allegedly Rohingya refugees who were the passengers of the capsized and sunken boat,” Al Hussain, chief of Banda Aceh Search and Rescue Agency in a statement on Sunday.
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The bodies were immediately taken to the hospital in Calang city in Aceh Jaya district, before local authorities buried them.
Faisal Rahman, a UNHCR staff member in Aceh, said that some of the survivors also helped to identify the bodies.
“We have verified as we take one of the refugees to identify and verify that they were together on the boat,” Faisal Rahman, a UNHCR staff member in Aceh, said Saturday evening.
Local authorities in Aceh have received several reports about dead bodies floating in nearby waters since Saturday.
U.N. agencies in a statement on Friday said that about 70 Rohingya refugees are feared missing or dead from a boat that made a grueling sea voyage from Bangladesh and sank off Indonesia’s coast this week.
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About 1 million of the predominately Muslim Rohingya live in Bangladesh as refugees from Myanmar. They include about 740,000 who fled in 2017 to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by Myanmar's security forces, who were accused of committing mass rapes and killings and burning thousands of homes. The Rohingya minority in Myanmar faces widespread discrimination and most are denied citizenship.
Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, is not a signatory to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention, and so is not obligated to accept them. However, the country generally provides temporary shelter to refugees in distress.