Amnesty International: Indonesia must end religious discrimination

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - “The Indonesian authorities must guarantee the safe, voluntary and dignified return of the Shia community to their homes, according to their wishes,” said Isabelle Arradon of Amnesty International's Asia Pacific program in a recent report.

She added that Jakarta should also help the community to “rebuild the homes that were damaged or destroyed.”

In August 2012, Shia Muslims from Karang Gayam village in the Sampang district were displaced after an anti-Shia mob of around 500 people attacked the community with weapons and stones, killing two of them.

The mob set fire to 35 houses belonging to the Shia Muslims.

Since then, the displaced Shia Muslims have been living in inadequate conditions at a sports complex in the district on Madura Island, off Indonesia’s eastern coast of Java.

The Indonesian government also cut the free food and water supplies for the Shias in November, while religious and village leaders demanded the group convert to Sunni Islam, which is the religion of the majority in Indonesia, or be expelled from the district.

Arradon further said, “They (officials) must also end discrimination against religious minorities in the country and investigate reports that the local and provincial authorities are coercing Shia followers to renounce their faith before they are allowed to return to their homes.”

“Those involved in the attack on the Shia community in August must also be brought to justice in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness,” she added.

During its Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council in May 2012, Indonesia reaffirmed its commitment to freedom of religion and to address cases of religious intolerance.

However, religious minorities in the country continue to face harassment and those who commit acts of violence against them are rarely brought to justice.

North Korea Plans New Nuclear Test Aimed at “Arch Enemy” US

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - North Korea said on Thursday it planned to carry out a third nuclear test and more rocket launches aimed at US, which Pyongyang described as its “arch enemy.”

"We do not hide that the various satellites and long-range rockets we will continue to launch, as well as the high-level nuclear test we will proceed with, are aimed at our arch-enemy the United States," the National Defense Commission said.

"Settling accounts with the US needs to be done with force, not with words," it added.
The mention of the test came towards the end of a commission statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It did not specify when the test might be carried out, saying only that it would be part of an "upcoming all-out action that would mark a new phase" of the country's anti-US struggle.

It also did not elaborate on the meaning of "high-level". Agence France Presse quoted some experts as predicting that the North's next atomic test might be of a uranium bomb, rather than the plutonium devices it detonated in 2006 and 2009.
Such a development would indicate that North Korea had mastered the sophisticated technology needed to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU).

Much of Thursday’s statement was devoted to condemning Tuesday's announcement by the UN Security Council of expanded sanctions against Pyongyang in response to its long-range rocket launch last month.

"We absolutely refute all the illegal and outlawed resolutions adopted by the Security Council," the commission said.
Tuesday's resolution, proposed by the United States, was adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council, including the North's sole major ally China.

Beijing, which had sought to shield North Korea from harsher sanctions sought by the United States and its allies, appealed on Wednesday for restraint and diplomatic efforts to avoid a dangerous escalation of tensions.

"The DPRK's (North Korea's) satellite launch as well as speculation of a nuclear test highlight the urgency and importance of settling relevant issues on the Korean peninsula," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.

Australian Party candidate rejects halal meat, doesn't want his money to 'go to the Muslim community'

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - A candidate for Bob Katter's fledgling political party declared his preference for buying ''guaranteed non-halal meat'' so his money does not ''go to the Muslim community''.

Jamie Cavanough, who is standing for Katter's Australian Party in Sydney's most marginal federal seat, Greenway, is under fire for the apparently divisive comments he made to a community forum in one of the city's most ethnically diverse areas.

Katter's Australian Party played down the comments on Friday, describing them as a non-issue.

Mr Cavanough made his comments on Saturday, less than a fortnight after controversy in the Greenway community over plans for a supposed Muslim enclave, dubbed ''Halal housing'', in Riverstone.

Mr Cavanough posted on the Riverstone Community Group forum, which has 732 members on Facebook: ''Can anyone advise me where I can buy Guaranteed NON halal lamb for Australia day.''

When a forum user suggested he might try a butcher, Mr Cavanough replied: ''have not asked yet, just wondering if anyone new [sic] of any, I would prefer to always buy non halal as proceeds of halal goes to the Muslim community.''

And in a separate post, Mr Cavanough called on people to sign a petition against a supposed plan by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to scrap the name Australia Day in favour of Harmony Day, saying ''the Muslim church is in favour of this''. The Prime Minister's office confirmed there was no such proposal.

Mr Cavanough told Fairfax Media he was simply looking for a better deal on meat and his comments were not racially motivated.

''In my view, and it's not the view of any party, I want to be able to purchase a product that has not been faced to a god that I don't believe in and blessed,'' he said

Thailand detains 200 Rohingya Muslims refugees fleeing from Myanmar

Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The Rohingya refugees were spotted off Racha Noi Island in Phuket’s Muang district on Tuesday.

The Thai Naval Force said the refugees were provided with food and water.

On Monday, Thai National Security Council Secretary General Paradorn Pattanathabutr stated that Thailand would no longer allow Rohingya boat people fleeing ethnic violence in Myanmar to enter the country.

"The Thai navy from now on will be stricter with them and will no longer allow them to land," AFP quoted Pattanathabutr as saying.

In recent months, a large number of Rohingya Muslim refugees have fled to Thailand.

Some 800,000 Rohingyas are deprived of citizenship rights due to the policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of citizenship and made them vulnerable to acts of violence and persecution, expulsion, and displacement.

The Myanmar government has so far refused to extricate the stateless Rohingyas in the western state of Rakhine from their citizenship limbo, despite international pressure to give them a legal status.

Rohingya Muslims have faced torture, neglect, and repression in Myanmar for many years.

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in recent attacks by extremists who call themselves Buddhists.

The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Rakhine. Myanmar Army forces allegedly provided the fanatics containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who are then forced to flee.

Myanmar’s government has been accused of failing to protect the Muslim minority.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has also come under fire for her stance on the violence. The Nobel Peace laureate has refused to censure the Myanmarese military for its persecution of the Rohingyas.

Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued separate statements, calling on Myanmar to take action to protect the Rohingya Muslim population against extremists

Japan repels Taiwan activists near disputed islands

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Japan claimed China ceded sovereignty of the disputed islands after the 1895 Sino-Japanese War. It also said the islands were administered by the U.S. during World War II -- this has been corrected to after World War II. We apologize for the errors.

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Several Japanese Coast Guard ships fired water cannon and shouted warnings at a boat carrying Taiwanese activists who were attempting to land on islands disputed by Taiwan, Japan and China, a spokesman said.

Through loud speakers, the Japanese Coast guard urged the activists and four Taiwanese Coast Guard vessels accompanying them, to retreat from waters around the islands, which are known as the Senkakus in Japan, and Diaoyu in China.

The deterrent worked and the Taiwanese ships left the area, the Japanese Coast Guard said.

According to state news agencies in Taiwan and China, the confrontation occurred about 28 nautical miles from the islands in the East China Sea.

 

Island dispute continues to fuel China-Japan tensions

Two incidents near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea have underscored the danger of simmering tensions between China and Japan erupting into a major confrontation.

The Japanese coastguard reported yesterday that four Chinese marine surveillance ships sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Japanese-controlled islands, known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu. The Japanese foreign ministry issued a formal protest to the Chinese embassy in Tokyo. The alleged intrusion was the first this year and the 21st since Tokyo “nationalised” the islands in 

September, provoking sharp protests from China.

On Saturday, the Japanese military scrambled fighter jets to head off a Chinese civilian surveillance plane that was apparently heading toward the islets. According to Japanese officials, the Chinese aircraft did not enter what Japan considers its airspace. It is the second such episode—on December 13, eight Japanese F-15 fighters were dispatched to intercept a Chinese plane.

The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands are not the only source of tension. On December 29, the Japanese coastguard detained a Chinese fishing vessel that had entered the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone around the southern Japanese island of Yasushima. The captain and two crew members were taken to Kagoshima city, on Kyushu, for questioning before being released.

In September 2010, Japan detained the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel after an alleged collision with a Japanese coastguard vessel in waters off the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and threatened to put him on trial. The arrest rapidly evolved into a tense standoff, in which China threatened to cut off exports of vital rare earths to Japan. The dispute was only resolved when Japanese authorities released the captain.

Indonesia Misses 2012 Budget Deficit Target on Spending Shortage

Indonesia missed its 2012 budget deficit target amid lower-than-expected government spending, capping the growth of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

The 2012 budget deficit was 1.77 percent of gross domestic product, below the target of 2.23 percent of GDP, Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said at a briefing today. Government spending reached 1,481.7 trillion rupiah ($152 billion) compared with the 1,548.3 trillion rupiah target, he told reporters in Jakarta.

“Capital expenditure was low because of land acquisition problems,” Bambang Brodjonegoro, head of fiscal policy at the finance ministry, said at the briefing. “If capital expenditure had met its target, economic growth could have been higher.”

North Korean leader, in rare address, seeks end to confrontation with South

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year's broadcast on state media.

The address by Kim, who took power in the reclusive state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year's editorial published annually in the past in leading state newspapers.

But North Korea has offered olive branches before and Kim's speech does not necessarily signify a change in tack from a country which vilifies the United States and U.S. ally South Korea at every chance.

Impoverished North Korea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocket in December it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite in orbit, drawing international condemnation.

North Korea, which considers the North and South one country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nuclear technology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear weapons tests.

"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south," Kim said in an address that appeared to be pre-recorded.

The Ultimate Betrayal: Human Trafficking in Vietnam

Sunk into the mountain range that connects Vietnam to China sits the Vietnamese border town of Lao Cai. A sprawling concrete mess, the town has shot up over the last few decades in response to the increasing amount of trade between the two countries, luring in people from the surrounding mountains looking for an alternative livelihood to farming. Living in stark contrast to the farming communities they have left behind, the open market seems to have bought a better standard of life.

In a small building tucked down an alleyway, the girls at the Lao Cai shelter for Victims of Human Trafficking hold a different perspective. All recently returned from China, they wait for a position to open up in one of Vietnam's more permanent shelters. For many of them, they can't return home and, with a constant influx of new returnees, they can't stay here for long.

The statistics on the human trafficking in Vietnam vary hugely and official information is limited. The Vietnam Ministry of Public Security offer the official figure of 2,935 Vietnamese victims of human trafficking between 2004 and 2009, while Hagar International claim the considerably larger total of over 400,000 victims since 1990.

Madam Thuy, Director of the Human Trafficking department at the Centre for Women's Development, reinforces the general consensus that the phenomenon is on the rise and that it cannot simply be explained by looking to poverty.

"There are many factors that contribute to the growth in trafficking, but most common across all cases is the disintegration of the family structure" says Thuy.
The stories of the girls in the shelters reinforce her point. The vast majority of them where originally sold by either family members or close friends.

Linh is a 25 year old woman who was bought back from China last year and lives now in Hanoi's Peace House Shelter. Born into a family of eight, she grew up working the fields and looking after the chickens in a small mountain village. As she grew up her siblings were allocated different roles, her two brother sent off to university while her older sister was pulled out of school to be married.

Laos Clarifies Activist Case to UN

The Lao government told the United Nations Thursday that missing local social activist Sombath Somphone was not taken into police custody before his disappearance as widely reported and that he may have been kidnapped because of a “personal conflict.”

Yong Chanthalangsy, Laos’s Ambassador to the U.N. office in Geneva, made the statement in a letter responding to queries about Sombath from U.N. rights officials, who have expressed concern that the activist may be the victim of an enforced disappearance by the authorities.

Sombath, who has been honored for his work reducing poverty and promoting education in Laos through a training center he founded, was last seen by his wife driving home from his office in the Lao capital Vientiane on Dec. 15.

Police closed-circuit television footage from that night, which relatives have posted online, shows him being stopped by traffic police, according to government statements about the case.

Yong Chanthalangsy’s letter said that U.N. Special Procedures officials—independent investigators assigned by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council—had been misinformed about the case and that traffic police had not taken Sombath into custody during the stop.

“Contrary to the information the U.N. Special Procedures received, Mr. Sombath was not taken by the police to the police post,” the letter said, according to a copy published in the state-owned Vientiane Times newspaper.

Sombath had been stopped around 6:00 p.m. by police conducting “routine random checks” on vehicles at a police post on Thadeua Road, and had gotten out of his jeep to present his documents to the police, the letter said, citing the footage.

Laos pressed on activist disappearance

The UN and some western governments are preparing to put fresh questions to the Lao government over the mysterious disappearance in mid-December of a prominent education and health campaigner, after Vientiane late last week rejected suggestions by the UN of state involvement in the case.

In a statement to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Laos denied knowledge of the whereabouts of Sombath Somphone, 60, and said he had not been taken into police custody, as widely reported, but rather may have been kidnapped because of a “personal conflict”.

UN human rights officials, as well as US and European governments, have expressed concern in recent weeks that the activist is being held by the Lao authorities.

Closed circuit video footage from police security cameras showed Mr Sombath, founder of a local non-government organisation Padetc, being stopped by traffic police at a roadside post while he was driving home from work in Vientiane, the Lao capital, in mid-December.

Mr Sombath was following his Singaporean wife in a separate car but never arrived home. The government has denied he was taken into custody at the stop, which they said was a “routine” check, but grainy CCTV footage shows a man resembling Mr Sombath being driven away by uniformed Lao officials.

Vientiane-based diplomats at the weekend expressed doubt about official denials of involvement in Mr Sombath’s disappearance and said their embassies were set to convey further concerns about the case. “We are considering the next move, and it could well be a démarche,” said one western diplomat.

13 killed in Philippines shootout: police

The battle erupted after gunmen in two vehicles tried to smash through a police checkpoint near the town of Atimonan, according to the national police headquarters' operations centre.

A police statement said one senior police officer was wounded and taken to hospital, and 10 firearms were recovered from the gang members, including an M16 assault rifle.

Provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Val de Leon said the road block was put up following a tip-off from a police informant that the gang was to pass through the area on the way to Manila "to make a major hit".

"The information we received came from a very reliable informer, and this is a big accomplishment," de Leon said.

He said the army had also been told of the operation, and that some military personnel helped man the check point.

"We made sure that all escape routes are sealed," de Leon said.

Myanmar Muslims recall Buddhist assault

SIN THET MAW, Myanmar (AP) -- Stranded beside their decrepit flotilla of wooden boats, on a muddy beach far from home, the Muslim refugees tell story after terrifying story of their exodus from a once-peaceful town on Myanmar's western coast.

They were attacked one quiet evening, they say, by Buddhist mobs determined to expel them from the island port of Kyaukphyu.

There were chaotic clashes and gruesome killings, and a wave of arson strikes so intense that flames eventually engulfed their entire neighborhood.

In the end, all they could do was run.

So they piled into 70 or 80 fishing boats - some 4,000 souls in all - and fled into the sea. In those final moments, many caught one last dizzying glimpse of the town they grew up in - of a sky darkened by smoke billowing from a horizon of burning homes, of beaches filled with seething Buddhist throngs who had spent the day pelting their departing boats with slingshot-fired iron darts.

The Oct. 24 exodus was part of a wave of violence that has shaken western Myanmar twice in the last six months. But what began with a series of skirmishes that pitted ethnic Rakhine Buddhists against Rohingya, a Muslim minority, appears to have evolved into something far more disturbing: a region-wide effort by Buddhists to drive Muslims out with such ferocious shows of hatred that they could never return.

Although many Rohingya have lived here for generations, they are widely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and most are denied citizenship. Similar mass expulsions have happened twice before under the country's former army rulers. But the fact that they are occurring again now, during Myanmar's much-praised transition to democratic rule, is particularly troubling.

Both reformist President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, have condemned the violence. Yet neither has defended the Rohingya, even though Muslims account for roughly two-thirds of the 200 dead, 95 percent of the 115,000 displaced and 90 percent of the homes destroyed so far, according to government statistics.

East Timor celebrates coming of age as UN troops leave

The United Nations has pulled the last of its troops out of Asia’s youngest nation, East Timor. It is a symbolic moment for the former Portuguese colony, which gained its independence from Indonesia 13 years ago.

The UN finally ended its peacekeeping mission in East Timor, with the final soldiers leaving on Monday morning.

Since 1999, some 1,500 peacekeepers have been stationed in the country. Leaders expressed excitement about the historic moment in the history of their nation, despite the challenges posed by widespread poverty and lack of development.

"In the end we have to say goodbye to the UN with... high appreciation for what they have been doing," Deputy Prime Minister Fernando La Sama de Araujo told the AFP news agency.

East Timor faces a number of challenges, with drastic improvements planned for schools, hospitals and other services.

"We're optimistic that in 10 years, coming together with many friends around the world including UN agencies for development, we can overcome these challenges," said de Araujo.

Meanwhile, in a New Year speech, President Taur Matan Ruak welcomed the end of the UN mission, praising the peace and stability now enjoyed by the country's population of just over a million.

The electorate of East Timor, also referred to by its official name Timor-Leste, voted for independence in a UN-organized vote in 1999. The poll was followed by political unrest and bloodshed, and East Timor was under UN administration until 2002, when it became a country in its own right.

East Timor shook off some four centuries of Portuguese rule on November 28, 1975, only to be invaded by Indonesia nine days later.

Indonesia pledges $1m in aid to Myanmar's Rakhine state

JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia's foreign minister said on Friday Jakarta would pledge US$1 million (S$1.23 million) in aid to western Myanmar's Rakhine state, where tens of thousands have been displaced by sectarian violence.

Clashes between Buddhists and Muslims have left at least 180 people dead in Rakhine since June, and displaced more than 110,000 others, mostly Muslim Rohingya.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said he would visit Myanmar on a 24-hour trip starting Monday "to deal with the issue of Rohingya on the invitation of the Myanmar government".

"The Indonesian government, when I visit Myanmar, will inform of our pledge to commit $1 million of humanitarian assistance to alleviate humanitarian suffering in Rakhine state," Natalegawa told reporters.

Are you doing your part to help Singapore progress?

No, voting for the correct political party in 2016 is not one of the ways to help Singapore progress that I’m going to talk about in this article. (I say this because I’ve heard plenty of people suggest that this is the number one way we can do our part.)

Instead, I’m going to discuss what other things we can do at an individual level to build a brighter future for Singapore.

This article isn’t about what the government should do to lower housing prices, improve public transportation or create more jobs.

There’s definitely a place for that kind of debate, but I don’t want to talk about the government in this article.

I want to talk about you and me.

How can we make Singapore a more wonderful place to live? How should we adjust our attitude and mindset? What principles should we operate by? How can we behave differently?

I’ve come up with four ways:

1. Focus on pulling ourselves up instead of dragging other people down

When we see people who are richer, more capable, or more knowledgeable than us, how do we respond?

It’s natural to look for reasons why they just don’t deserve to be better off than us. It’s easy to start complaining about how unfair our society is, or even how unfair life is.

When we do this, however, we’re refusing to take complete responsibility for our lives. We’re attempting to drag others down, instead of pulling ourselves up.

We can pull ourselves up by focusing on upgrading our skills and changing our attitude. We can read more books, go for more courses, start new projects, and build new businesses.

There’s always something we can do—no matter how small or seemingly insignificant—to bring us from where we are to where we want to go.

Business owners said to be gaining confidence in Malaysia's economy

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian business owners are gaining confidence in the country's economy, according to the latest Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR), which pushed up the optimism level to 12% from -4%.

SJ Grant Thornton managing partner Datuk N.K. Jasani said the IBR also revealed that 52% of Malaysian businesses were expecting higher revenue for the year ahead. Meanwhile, 42% of businesses expect to invest in plant and machinery and 35% expect profitability for this year.

For the global economy, according to the report which surveyed 3,200 business leaders in 44 economies, global business optimism stood at 4% at end-2012, up from 0% a year ago.


However, this scenario is painted quite differently for Asia, in particular for Asean nations. The Philippines is the most optimistic at 72%, followed by Singapore at 26% and Thailand at 19%. However, Vietnam's optimism level has dropped from 34% previously to -10% for the year.

Japan’s Aso Targets Myanmar Markets Amid China Rivalry: Economy

Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso met with Myanmar’s president and senior officials today in a sign the nation plans to tap a market of 64 million people that has been dominated by China.

The visit is the first overseas trip by a member of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet that took office last month. It coincides with the U.S. and the United Nations expressing concern over government strikes against ethnic rebels in Myanmar’s north.

“It sends a message that Myanmar was chosen as the first overseas country to be visited by officials of the new government,” Aso told reporters outside the parliament building in Naypyidaw, the nation’s capital. “We’ll help build an environment in which economic growth can flourish in Myanmar,” he said, adding that help depends on democratic reforms.

Japan’s push into the nation bordering India and China may produce trade opportunities for its stagnating economy while helping Myanmar President Thein Sein meet a pledge to attract labor-intensive industries to create jobs. Competing Chinese and Japanese efforts risk further straining relations between Asia’s two biggest economies, already at odds over islands in the East China Sea.

“China considers Myanmar as its turf, and China is very sensitive of the U.S. and Japan making headway,” said Takuji Okubo, Tokyo-based chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors. “Myanmar could be another source of conflict.”

Why Japan Can't Compete With China

As China keeps extending its interests abroad, some predict that neighboring countries will form a coalition to counter it. Any of three states could take the lead on building such an alliance: India, South Korea, or Japan. Each has a different mix of technological, economic, and diplomatic power that -- when combined with the resources of other states -- might keep Beijing hemmed in, or so the theory goes.

But if there's one leading state that could be eliminated from this possibilities matrix soon, it's Japan. That's because it lacks another kind of capital -- human capital.

Japan has a population of 128 million, not even a tenth the size of China. This wouldn't be a huge problem, except that the Japanese are also a lot older: the median age there is 44.6 to China's 35.2. Even the median South Korean is much closer in age to the median Chinese than to her Japanese counterpart. 

Technology can help shore up people deficits -- automation and complex electronics beget efficiency. But only to a point. Beyond that, the need for more manpower begins to eat away at Japan's technological and industrial advantages.

And it isn't as though Japan's got the shiniest infrastructure, either. Take the country's coast guard, which offers a good example of the country's limits. For the past year, Japan has been embroiled in a major territorial dispute with China over a set of islands in the East China Sea. It's the coast guard that's shouldered much of the responsibility for standing up to China in these waters. The forces arranged on either side are tenuously balanced -- for now. But looking ahead, Tokyo officials worry they won't have enough ships to defend what they know as the Senkaku islands (or what the Chinese call the Diaoyu islands):