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Asia
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Chinese Communist Party's foreign policy chief Wang Yi during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, July 13, 2023.
On Thursday, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Vientiane, Laos, to kick off a three-day summit focused on resolving Myanmar’s violent civil war and cooling tensions in the South China Sea. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are also attending – each with their own interests in mind.
In Myanmar, ASEAN nations have failed to make progress toward their “five-point consensus” unveiled in April 2021, two months after a military coup. Since then, the country has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis – with over 3 million displaced and more than 5,400 Burmese killed. ASEAN’s plan seeks an immediate cessation of violence, which has largely been ignored by junta leaders, calling into question the efficacy of the bloc amid fears of regional spillover.
This week’s talks hope to revive the much-criticized plan but are likely to face significant obstacles as competing geopolitical interests leave countries – including the US and China – supporting opposing factions.
On the South China Sea sovereignty issue, ASEAN is hoping to capitalize off the progress made on Sunday’s deal between China and the Philippines and to finalize a similar agreement of their own – a protracted code of conduct including China. Still, pessimism looms over how much these nations can achieve to ease these protracted issues in the region.
China's top diplomat Wang Yi speaks at a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Park Jin, in Busan, South Korea, on Nov. 26, 2023.
12: Ukraine’s top diplomatmet with China’s foreign minister on Wednesday, signaling that China would like to play a more central role in finding a diplomatic end to the conflict. The talk comes after China’s previous attempt to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, a 12-point plan put forward in 2023, wasquickly dismissed by European leaders for being pro-Russia.
1,000: Ahead of Israel’s opening football match against Mali at the Olympic Games on Wednesday night, around1,000 French police officers formed an “anti-terror perimeter.” The game, along with a match between Ukraine and Iraq, have both been given the designation of high-risk because of their connections to global conflicts.
200,000: In New Zealand, an independent investigation found that more than200,000 people are estimated to have been abused by state organizations entrusted with their care. Many of the victims were children in foster care, and the abuse included sexual assault, electric shocks and chemical restraints, sterilization, starvation, and beatings.
600 million: UN officials said that levels of hunger are set to remain “shamefully” high in a report that predicts almost600 million people will be undernourished by 2030 – half of which will be in Africa, putting it on track to overtake Asia as the continent with the most hunger in the world. Hunger rates have jumped in the wake of COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and are likely to only worsen as climate change progresses.
Chinese retirement home.
13: In the real-life sequel to “Cocaine Bear,” 13 sharks have tested positive for cocaine off of the coast of Brazil – at a level 100 times higher than other aquatic life. Experts believe cocaine is getting into the water via illegal labs illegally manufacturing the drug, or through excrement of drug users.
17: A human rights law firm has accused the International Olympic Committee of negligence for allowing 17 Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the Summer Games in Paris even though the competitors have shown support for the war in Ukraine in breach of Olympic rules. Russia and Belarus have been banned from sending official teams to Paris. Still, some sports allow athletes to compete as individuals if they have passed a special IOC test of neutrality – which the law firm’s suit alleges they violated.
229: At least 229 people have died in mudslides this week following heavy rains in southwestern Ethiopia in the deadliest such disaster recorded in the Horn of Africa country. Most of the victims were rescue workers who were buried in a mudslide on Monday as they searched the steep terrain for survivors of another mudslide the previous day.A Philippine flag flutters from BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated Philippine Navy ship that has been aground since 1999 and became a Philippine military detachment on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea March 29, 2014.
Manila announced Sunday it had reached a “provisional agreement” with Beijing aimed at establishing an arrangement in the South China Sea that both sides can live with — without renouncing territorial claims. The text of the deal has not yet been released.
The agreement builds off last week’s announcement of the establishment of presidential hotlines and signals a desire for de-escalation by both countries – following a serious clash on June 17. But the key word in this agreement is “provisional” as both Beijing and Manila are already showing irreconcilable differences in their positions.
China had previously told Manila it could not bring construction materials to the wreck of the Sierra Madre, a decrepit hulk deliberately beached on the South Thomas Shoal by Manila to give it de facto control. Without repairs, the ship will likely break apart soon. But Beijing claims Manila agreed to give China advanced notice and allowed inspections of shipments sent to the marines it keeps stationed there carrying food and supplies. A senior Filipino official told the Associated Press that the final deal did not require the Philippines to pre-notify the Chinese of shipments.
What to watch? A deal to cool temperatures in the South China Sea would be welcome news for all parties, including the US. “The next big test,” says Eurasia Group senior China analyst Jeremy Chan, “will be how both Manila and Beijing behave on future resupply missions, and whether either side can cede any ground.”
A demonstrator gestures as protesters clash with Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the police outside the state-owned Bangladesh Television as violence erupts across the country after anti-quota protests by students, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 19, 2024.
Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday scrapped most government job quotas after two weeks of nationwide student-led protests left 139 people dead and more than 400 injured.
The back story:For decades, a quota system reserved 56% of government jobs for special groups. Thirty percent went to descendants of those who fought for independence against Pakistan in 1971. The rest were for women, minorities, and poor districts.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ended that in 2018 in response to protests, but in June the High Court reinstated the fighters’ relatives quota, provoking fresh unrest and a police crackdown. Government jobs are coveted in a country of high youth unemployment, stagnant private-sector employment, and stinging inflation.
The court’s new ruling caps the job quota at 7%.
Hasina has held a tight grip on power since 2009. In January, she won an election that was boycotted by the opposition over concerns that she was rigging it.
Observers say the protests are about more than quotas. “They’re protesting against the repressive nature of the state,” said Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo. “The students are in fact calling [Hasina] a dictator.”
Will the protesters now look to press further against Hasina? Student leaders have already said they’ll stay in the streets until the government releases jailed students and restores internet service.
Russian-American journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Alsu Kurmasheva, who is in custody after she was accused of violating Russia's law on foreign agents, attends a court hearing in Kazan, Russia May 31, 2024.
6.5: A Russian court revealed on Monday that Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was sentenced on Friday to 6.5 years in prison for “spreading false information” about the Russian army. Kurmasheva, a dual citizen who works for the US-funded Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe service in Prague, was arrested while visiting her family in Russia in October. Her husband says the charges relate to a book of profiles of anti-war Russians that Kurmasheva edited. She is the second American journalist that Russia has sentenced to a lengthy prison term in the past four days alone.
24: ¿Latinos por Roberto? A new poll shows 24% of US Hispanic voters support third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That’s nearly 10 points above the national average. Respondents were split 36 to 36 on Biden vs. Trump. The poll was taken before Biden dropped out of the race, but it illustrates the increasingly uphill battle that Democrats face in keeping the support of a traditionally blue voting group. Read our in-depth look at the “Latino vote” here.
30,000: France is not messing around when it comes to security for the Paris Olympics, which begin later this week. Authorities will deploy 30,000 police throughout the event, rising to 45,000 during peak times. Alongside them will be 15,000 French military personnel and nearly 2,000 foreign police. Security officials have already conducted hundreds of raids, arresting members of far-right, far-left, and jihadist groups suspected of planning attacks. At least two plots have reportedly been broken up already.
4: India wants to get into the deep-sea mining game as it tries to secure supplies of rare minerals critical for its economy and energy transition. New Delhi has already won several licenses for the Indian Ocean, but it’s eyeing a bigger prize: a vast swathe of the Pacific between Mexico and Hawaii. Experts say it will take India at least four years to develop the required skills and technology to compete with Asian rival China. In the meantime, international authorities are still working out rules for deep-sea mining.
56: For the first time ever, a majority of new HIV infections occurred outside of sub-Saharan Africa, a UN report says. The milestone, based on numbers from 2023, reflects sustained progress against the disease by governments in Africa – where new infections have fallen 56% since 2010. Globally, new infections have fallen 39% during that time. But experts warn that case numbers are currently rising elsewhere in the world, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and north Africa.
Israeli police search the scene of an explosion near a branch of the US embassy in Tel Aviv early Friday.
The Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility for a drone attack in Tel Aviv early Friday that killed at least one person and wounded 10 others. The drone crashed into an apartment building not far from the US Embassy in Israel’s second-largest city.
This was the first time the Iran-backed group carried out a lethal attack in Israel – and it involved an Iran-made drone. The Israeli military is investigating how the drone evaded its defense systems. The drone was detected, but it wasn’t intercepted due to an “error,” said Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
The war in Gaza has fueled major tensions between Israel and Tehran, as well as its proxies in the region. For months, there have been concerns that Israel could go to war in Lebanon with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Friday’s drone attack occurred not long after Israel announced it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, and the fatal incident will likely raise further concerns that the war in Gaza risks spiraling into a much broader, regional conflict.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to visit the US next week to address Congress. Though the US and Israel remain close allies, Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war in Gaza has made him unpopular with some Democratic lawmakers in Washington – particularly progressives – and he has frequently butted heads with the Biden administration.
The fact that the Knesset on Thursday overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state – a move indicative of growing Israeli opposition to a two-state solution, a goal the US has pushed for decades – could also lead to some awkward conversations for Netanyahu in Washington.
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