Tag: Vietnam

Thailand: halt deportation of Karen refugees

PhetchaburiHuman Rights Watch (HRW) called on Thai authorities to halt the deportation of ethnic Karen villagers from Thailand's Phetchaburi province to Burma, citing grave risks to their safety if returned, and urging their immediate release from immigration detention. HRW reported that Thai security forces raided the Karen community living within Phetchaburi's Kaeng Krachan National Park, targeting those without proof of Thai citizenship, and arresting 26 villagers before placing them into the custody of the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok. The organization stated that deporting the Karen villagers to Burma would expose them to severe risk given the Burmese military junta's record of ethnically targeted attacks and abuses, including mass killings, torture and arbitrary arrests. (Map: Google)

Triple-cyclone disaster crystalizes climate threat

ColomboA rare convergence of three tropical cyclones with the northeast monsoon has triggered the worst flooding to hit South and Southeast Asia in decades. More than 1,600 people have been killed, thousands remain unaccounted for, and whole villages have disappeared under mud and rising water. Roads, bridges, and other vital infrastructure have been torn apart, hampering rescue efforts as communities wait for help across Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and other affected countries. The scale of the disaster reflects a dangerous mix of climate pressures. Warmer oceans are intensifying storms, while a hotter atmosphere is capable of holding and releasing far more moisture. Environmental degradation has left many communities exposed: rivers once stabilized by forest cover burst their banks with little resistance. Humanitarian groups are urging governments to strengthen early-warning systems, invest in resilient infrastructure, and prioritize long-term adaptation—all of which makes the disappointing outcomes of this year's UN climate summit even more worrying. (Photo: town in Sri Lanka after Cyclone Ditwah. Credit: UNICEF/InceptChange via UN News)

Vietnam: Khmer Krom people face escalating repression

Khmer KromUN human rights experts condemned what they described as escalating repression against the Khmer Krom people in Vietnam, urging authorities to cease targeting minority communities through security laws, and to release those detained for peaceful activity. The experts reported that Khmer Krom rights defenders, including Theravada Buddhist monks, face systematic harassment and criminalization for peaceful efforts to promote indigenous identity, cultural expression and religious freedom. The experts further condemned government claims that indigenous and minority cultural identity threaten national security and public order. (Image: Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization-UNPO)

Storms and floods kill hundreds around the globe

anthropoceneTyphoons, storms and flooding have killed hundreds and left millions homeless across four continents in recent days. More than 600 people—mostly in Vietnam and Burma—died when Super Typhoon Yagi, one of the strongest typhoons to hit Southeast Asia in decades, tore through the region, triggering landslides. In China, Typhoon Bebinca battered the commercial capital, Shanghai, forcing more than 400,000 people to evacuate. In Europe, at least 23 people died when Storm Boris dumped five times September's average rainfall in a single week. In the United States, parts of North and South Carolina recorded 45 centimeters of rain in 12 hours—a statistic so rare it's considered a once-in-a-thousand-year event. Inevitably, the wild weather has been devastating for more vulnerable countries. In conflict-affected northeastern Nigeria, half of the city of Maiduguri is under water after a local dam overflowed following torrential rains; recently emptied displacement camps are being used to shelter the homeless. In neighboring Chad, meanwhile, flooding has killed more than 340 people in the country's south. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Cambodia: citizens detained for protesting mega-project

CambodiaAt least 94 people have been arbitrarily arrested in Cambodia since late July for expressing public criticism of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a joint statement. The human rights organizations believe at least 59 of those arrested have been unlawfully detained by Cambodian authorities, and called for all charges in these cases to be immediately dropped. The Khmer Movement for Democracy states that the CLV-DTA would serve "as cover for further illegal deforestation, land evictions, and exploitation of resources for foreign gain." (Map: PCL)

Maritime collision escalates South China Sea tensions

Manila accused Chinese military vessels of engaging in "dangerous manoeuvres, including ramming and towing" a Philippine ship in an effort to disrupt a "routine" resupply mission to an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal (known to the Philippines as Ayungin Shoal) in the the disputed Spratly Islands (known to the Philippines as the Kalayaan Islands). By Philippine media accounts, the craft was fired upon with water cannon and boarded by Chinese troops, with several Filipino soldiers injured in the ensuing confrontation. The skirmish came amid escalating tensions over the South China Sea—much of which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea, but nearly all of which is claimed by Beijing. The chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Romeo Brawner Jr., stated that the military and other maritime law enforcement agencies are prepared to defend Filipino fishermen from China's newly announced "anti-trespassing policy." (Map via IDSA)

Podcast: Four dead in Ohio. And two in Mississippi.

Kent StateAs the police crackdown on the Gaza protests continues coast-to-coast—drawing concern from Amnesty International—Bill Weinberg notes that this repression comes in the month marking the 54th anniversary of slayings of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State University in Mississippi. With police now unleashing violence on student protesters in Paris, Amsterdam and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon, there is an unsettling sense of deja vu. In Episode 225 of the CounterVortex podcast, Weinberg warns that the world could be headed toward an historical moment that rhymes with May 1970. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Kent State University Libraries via Britannica)

Vietnam lists Montagnard groups as ‘terrorist’

MontagnardsVietnam announced that it has listed two pro-separatist Montagnard groups based in the US as "terrorist organizations." The term Montagnard refers to various highland ethnic minorities, also collectively known as the Dega, that are distinct from the country's majority Viet population. Under the "terrorist" designation, anyone found by Vietnamese authorities to have engaged with or aided the organizations may face criminal charges. The Montagnard Support Group and Montagnards Stand for Justice both call for an independent Dega homeland in what are today the Central Highlands of Vietnam. (Photo: Montagnard Support Group)

Podcast: geopolitics of the Barbie affair

In Episode 181 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the strange reality that the Barbie move has been banned in Vietnam over a brief image of a world map appearing to show the "nine-dash line" demarcating China's unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea. While US-China brinkmanship over Taiwan wins headlines, Beijing's maritime dispute with Hanoi holds unsettling potential for escalation. In a surreal paradox (for those who remember their history) Vietnam has actually been tilting to the US in the new cold war with China. It has also been increasingly resorting to internal police-state measures to protect the interests of foreign capital in the country. All of this constitutes a rebuke both to the neoliberals, who cling to the discredited dogma that "free markets" inevitably lead to peace and democracy, and to the tankies, who rally around both the regimes in Beijing and Hanoi, in defiance of political reality. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map via IDSA)

Podcast: against tankie MLK-exploitation

MLKIn Episode 158 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that the Russian Socialist Movement has issued a call for solidarity actions with anti‑war activists in Russia on Jan. 19. This is the date when left activists Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova were gunned down by far-right militants in Moscow in 2009. Today, the Vladimir Putin regime is persecuting activists such as Alexandra Skochilenko—who faces a long prison term for producing public art on an anti-war theme. Instead of responding to this call for solidarity, the ANSWER Coalition and other exponents of the "tankie" pseudo-left have called a rally against aid to Ukraine, and implicitly in support of Putin and his war aims, for Jan. 14 in locations such as New York's Times Square—perversely, in the name of Martin Luther King. The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign repudiates this pseudo-anti-war rally, urging: "No exploitation of Dr. MLK Jr. to support war criminal Putin!" Debunking the Russian propaganda that portrays Putin's aggression as a defensive move against NATO encroachment, Weinberg demonstrates that the principles propounded by Dr. King in his courageous dissent from LBJ's criminal war in Vietnam now mandate that we direct our protests at Vladimir Putin. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: MLK at anti-war march in Chicago, March 25, 1967, under banner with quote from Vietnamese pacifist Thich Nhat Hanh. Via Portland Observer)

East Asia
Tiananmen

‘Great Leap Backward’ for press freedom in China

TalibanInternational Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim AA Khan announced that his office has filed applications for arrest warrants before the Pre-trial Chamber against two leading Taliban officials accused of committing crimes against humanity. Khan stated that his office collected solid evidence suggesting that the "supreme leader" of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the chief justice of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," Abdul Hakim Haqqani, committed the crime of persecution on the basis of gender, violating Article 7 (1) (h) of the Rome Statute. He said that these Taliban officials have been persecuting Afghan women and girls, as well as any persons who don't follow their ideology, over the last four years. He said that the requested warrants are based on a wide range of evidence, including testimonies, official statements, and forensic reports gathered by a specialized investigation team. (Photo: VOA via Wikimedia Commons)