VIENTIANE, Laos: Top diplomats from Southeast Asia met Friday in Laos with China’s foreign minister for talks that come as friction escalates over Beijing’s growing effort to press its sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea.
Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have territorial disputes with China, which have led to direct confrontations that many worry could lead to broader conflict.
“One wrong step in the South China Sea will turn a small fire into a terrible firestorm,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said ahead of the talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all have conflicts with China over its claim of sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea, one of the world’s most crucial waterways for shipping. Indonesia has also expressed concern about what it sees as Beijing’s encroachment on its exclusive economic zone.
The United States and its allies, meanwhile, have regularly conducted military exercises and patrols in the area to assert their “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy, including the right to navigate in international waters, drawing criticism from China.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to arrive Saturday to attend the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meetings and was expected to meet with Wang on the sidelines.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also attending the meetings, and already held direct talks with Wang.
China is a key ally of Russia’s in its war against Ukraine, and Wang emphasized the “deepening strategic coordination” between the two nations, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, urged the ASEAN ministers not to ignore the European conflict as they hold their meetings.
“I am aware that the Russian aggression against Ukraine may seem far away from ASEAN, but its consequences, be it in inflation or increase in food and oil prices, are also felt by our populations, even if Russia works hard to spread disinformation,” Borrell said.
This year, tensions between the Philippines — an American treaty ally — — and China have escalated. In June, a Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship collided near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, sparking alarm.
The ASEAN members — Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos — emphasized in their opening meetings Thursday that it’s important they don’t get drawn in as both China and the US look to expand their influence in the region.
Following the talks, Marsudi said the group stressed that it should not be a proxy for any power, otherwise “it will be difficult for ASEAN to become an anchor for regional stability and peace.”
Wang did not mention the South China Sea in his opening remarks as he met with the ASEAN ministers Friday, instead emphasizing Chinese economic and trade ties.
But the issue did come up, with Indonesia imploring China to “participate in maintaining peace, stability and prosperity in the region,” Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry said.
The ASEAN ministers emphasized the importance of completing ongoing work with China on preparing a South China Sea code of conduct, as issues there continue to be a “stumbling block” in ASEAN relations with China, the ministry said.
“Indonesia’s position is consistent, namely that all claims must be resolved peacefully through direct dialogue between the parties concerned,” it quoted Marsudi as saying.
China and the Philippines said Sunday they had reached a deal that they hope will end their confrontations, aiming to establish a mutually acceptable arrangement for the disputed area without conceding each side’s territorial claims.
There are divisions within ASEAN on how to deal with China’s maritime claims and the Philippines has been critical over a perceived lack of support from the bloc.
In Thursday’s talks, the Philippines pushed for the inclusion of June’s collision in the joint communique to be issued at the end of the meetings. Cambodia and Laos, which are close to China, opposed the wording, according to a senior Southeast Asian diplomat who was involved in closed-door negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely.
Manila’s proposal stated that a recent incident in the South China Sea caused “damage to properties” and “caused injuries” without mentioning specific details like the name of the shoal and the contending state forces, the diplomat said.
The increasingly violent civil war in ASEAN member state Myanmar is also one of the main issues being taken up, and the group supported Thailand taking a broader role, Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa said.
Thailand, which shares a long border with Myanmar, has already been involved in providing humanitarian assistance. Maris announced another $250,000 will be donated to the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management that is overseeing a plan to deliver aid into Myanmar.
The army in Myanmar ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule, leading to increasing violence and a humanitarian crisis.
ASEAN has been pushing a “five-point consensus” for peace, but the military leadership in Myanmar has so far ignored the plan, raising questions about the bloc’s efficiency and credibility.
It calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a 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.
Myanmar has been blocked from sending political representatives to ASEAN meetings and is instead represented by Aung Kyaw Moe, the permanent secretary of Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry.
China, which also shares a long border with Myanmar, also plays an important role in that it supports the military regime while also maintaining close contacts with several of the powerful ethnic armed groups that are currently fighting against it.
In his opening statement ahead of talks between ASEAN and China, Aung Kyaw Moe had effusive praise for Beijing, pledging that the bloc would continue to work to deepen cooperation with China in all areas.
ASEAN diplomats meet with China as friction mounts over Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims
https://arab.news/wbjvz
ASEAN diplomats meet with China as friction mounts over Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims
- ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all have conflicts with China over its claim of sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea
‘Gaza is America’s war and we can stop it the blink of an eye,’ US presidential candidate Jill Stein tells Arab News
- Green Party candidate says the billions of dollars in military aid given to Israel should be used to address American needs
- Asked whether a third party could undercut the main candidates, Stein says Democrats and Republicans ‘don’t own those votes’
CHICAGO: Dr. Jill Stein, the US Green Party’s candidate for November’s presidential election, says Americans are losing “much needed benefits” due to tax money allegedly being redirected to fund Israel’s war in Gaza.
Speaking to The Ray Hanania Radio Show during an episode broadcast on Thursday, Stein accused the mainstream media and the Democrats of trying to block her candidacy to artificially strengthen the candidacy of Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris.
She also said the US bore responsibility for the violence in Gaza, fueled by the perceived pro-Israel bias in the media and by politicians who received millions in campaign donations from pro-Israel political action committees to support the war.
“In the current case, the US is providing 80 percent of the weapons that are being used to murder women, children, and innocent civilians. We’re also providing money, military support and diplomatic cover and intelligence. So the US has total autonomy here,” she said.
“This is our war. It is really a misnomer in many ways to call this Israel’s war. This is the US’ war. We are in charge of this war and we can stop this war with the blink of an eye,” she added, urging voters not to get talked into “endorsing genocide.”
“There is no more critical of an issue than what’s going on right now in Gaza because this is really normalizing the torture and murder of children on an industrial scale. The destruction of international law and human rights.
“As Gaza goes, eventually we’re all gonna go. If we allow human rights to be systematically torn down and international law, the way it’s being done here, eventually that’s gonna rebound to us because the US has been the dominant power for the last several decades but we are no longer the dominant power economically and militarily.”
Stein said every vote for her candidacy and the Green Party could help bring an end not only to Israel’s war in Gaza but also to other conflicts around the world.
“What’s going on is terrible for the US and it’s terrible for Israel. We are hypocrites. We’re supposedly defending democracy, yet we are throwing candidates off the ballot here in our own country,” she said, referring to recent efforts by the Democratic Party in Montana, Nevada and Wisconsin to remove the Green Party from the ballot over alleged procedural issues.
“We’re also mobilizing Israel’s neighbors against Israel. In the countries that have had peace treaties, some of Israel’s most staunch partners, including Egypt and especially Jordan where there are huge rallies and demonstrations against Israel demanding the end of the peace treaty.”
Stein, who is Jewish American, has openly stated she supported Israel, Palestine, and the two-state solution, but has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, calling it “a fascist government” that was engaged in genocide.
She urged voters not to believe the one-sided picture often presented by politicians and the media, insisting that criticism of Israeli policies was “not antisemitism” but legitimate political discourse that must take place to make the US stronger.
“In the long-term interest of everyone in the region, the US and the Netanyahu government need to come into compliance with international law and specifically the rulings of the International Court of Justice,” she said.
“Which means an end to the genocide immediately and then a withdrawal to 1967 borders, which is what this agreement calls for. Withdrawal, an end to the occupation and an end to the ethnic cleansing, which has been going on for a very long time,” she said, referring to the civilian death toll of more than 40,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
“To criticize Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism. Zionism and Judaism are very different things. Zionism is a political ideology. It is not the Jewish religion. There are many strong proponents of the Jewish religion who are fierce opponents of Zionism.”
Instead of financing Israel’s military campaigns, Stein said the next US president should “fund solutions” to improve the lives of Americans by addressing affordable healthcare, creating more jobs, improving education for children and strengthening social security for seniors and retirees.
Both the Democrats and Republicans were instead sending US tax money to Israel while depriving public services of the funding they need, she said.
“Half of the Congressional budget is being spent on the endless war machine,” she said, referring to legislation providing $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which includes $3.8 billion from a bill in March and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriations act in April.
Although this is in no way half of the Congressional budget, which is worth $6.8 trillion, Stein said the outlay nonetheless meant “we are not meeting the emergencies that we have on healthcare, housing, education and the environment.”
“So this is a disaster for every American, and it’s really important that we not be talked into drinking the Kool-Aid,” she said, using a term that means having a cult-like faith in a dangerous idea because of wrongly perceived rewards.
Stein, who ran for the presidency in 2012 and 2016, said she was again putting her name on the ballot because she was concerned about the problems that Americans were facing, which she believes neither of the two main parties are addressing.
Americans “need a new political option that is in the public interest,” she said, insisting the Green Party offered a greater focus on American needs than either the Republicans or the Democrats.
On the same episode of The Ray Hanania Radio Show, in an interview recorded a couple of days earlier, former Chicago Congressman Bill Lipinski — who represented one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslim voters in the US — said American voters should not take the role of third-party candidates like Stein for granted.
Although it is extremely difficult for a third-party candidate to break the two-party system and win a presidential election, Lipinski said they could have a disproportionate impact on the outcome, particularly in swing states where every vote counted.
Given today’s polarized, emotion-driven politics, Lipinski said the US election system should be changed to better accommodate third-party candidates.
“At times I would like to see a third party. There are other times when I think (it is better having just) two parties. In another time in another place, two parties were sufficient. Today, I don’t believe that’s the case,” he said.
“Today I would really like to see a third party because, unfortunately, the Republicans are controlled to a great extent nowadays by their extreme right wing, the Democrats by their extreme left wing. That’s not good for the parties. Nor is it good for the country.”
The Green Party has run candidates in several presidential elections, often making a significant impact on the final outcome. Ralph Nader, the party’s candidate in the 2000 poll, drew votes away from Democratic Vice President Al Gore, contributing to his loss to Republican George W. Bush.
When Stein ran as the Green Party candidate in 2016, she drew significant support away from Democrat Hillary Clinton, who lost to Republican Donald Trump.
To those who might argue that a vote for the Green Party means splitting the progressive vote, making it easier for the Republicans to succeed, Stein insisted that neither the Democrats or Republicans “own those votes.”
“They don’t belong to parties. They belong to people.”
You can listen to the full interview with US presidential candidate Jill Stein and former US Congressman Bill Lipinski online at ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow.
As US colleges raise the stakes for protests, activists are weighing new strategies
The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as US colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines
WASHINGTON: University of Southern California law student Elizabeth Howell-Egan isn’t allowed on campus because of her role in last spring’s anti-war protests, but she is keeping up her activism.
She and like-minded students are holding online sessions on the Israel-Hamas war and passing out fliers outside the campus, which is now fortified with checkpoints at entrances and security officers who require students to scan IDs.
“Change is never comfortable. You always have to risk something to create change and to create a future that we want to live in,” said Howell-Egan, a member of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which is calling on USC to divest from companies profiting off the war.
The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as US colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines — all intended to avoid disruptions like last spring’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protect students from hate speech. Activism has put their degrees and careers at risk, not to mention tuition payments, but many say they feel a moral responsibility to continue the movement.
Tent encampments — now forbidden on many campuses — so far have not returned. And some of the more involved students from last spring have graduated or are still facing disciplinary measures. Still, activist students are finding other ways to protest, emboldened by the rising death toll in Gaza and massive protests this month in Israel to demand a ceasefire.
Tensions over the conflict have been high on American campuses since the war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 hostage. The war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.
As the pro-Palestinian demonstrations took off nationally, Jewish students on many campuses have faced hostility, including antisemitic language and signs. Some colleges have faced US civil rights investigations and settled lawsuits alleging they have not done enough to address antisemitism.
A desire ‘to be part of something’
Temple University senior Alia Amanpour Trapp started the school year on probation after being arrested twice last semester during pro-Palestinian protests. Within days, she was back on the university’s radar for another demonstration.
As she reflects on the fallout from her activism, she thinks of her grandfather, a political prisoner killed in 1988 massacres orchestrated by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
“He paid the ultimate price for what he believed in. And so, I feel like the least I can do is stand my ground and face it,” she said.
Trapp, a political science major, devotes much of her time outside classes to Students for Justice in Palestine, which led her to the back-to-school protest on Aug. 29. The group of a few dozen protesters made several stops, including outside the Rosen Center, a hub of Jewish life that is home to Temple’s Hillel Chapter.
Some Jewish students inside said they were shaken by the demonstration. Protesters used megaphones to direct chats toward people inside, Temple President Richard Englert said. The university called it intimidation and opened an investigation.
“Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated,” Englert said.
Trapp said they were not out to intimidate anyone, but to condemn Hillel for what she called its support of Zionism. “To the students inside that felt threatened or harmed, I’m sorry,” she said.
Trapp is appealing a Temple panel’s ruling that she violated the college’s conduct code last spring. As she reflects on the discipline, she recalls a Temple billboard she saw on Interstate 95 after her first visit to campus.
“Because the world won’t change itself,” the ad beckoned. It reassured her that Temple was the right fit. “I so badly wanted to be part of something, you know, meaningful,” she said, “a community committed to change.”
A renewed push for divestment
At Brown University, some students who were arrested last spring are taking another tack to pressure the Ivy League school to divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel.
Last spring, the university committed to an October vote by its governing board on a divestment proposal, after an advisory committee weighs in on the issue. In exchange, student protesters packed up their tents.
Now students including Niyanta Nepal, the student body president who was voted in on a pro-divestment platform, say they intend to apply pressure for a vote in favor of divestment. They are rallying students to attend a series of forums and encouraging incoming students to join the movement.
Colleges have long rebuffed calls to divest from Israel, which opponents say veers into antisemitism. Brown already is facing heat for even considering the vote, including a blistering letter from two dozen state attorneys general, all Republicans.
Rafi Ash, a member of the Brown University Jews For Ceasefire Now and Brown Divest Coalition, declined to say what activism might look like if the divestment push fails. A Jewish student who was among 20 students arrested during a November sit-in at an administrative building, Ash dismisses critics who see the anti-war protests as antisemitic.
“The Judaism I was taught promotes peace. It promotes justice. It promotes ‘tikkun olam’ — repairing the world,” said Ash, who is on disciplinary probation. “This is the most Jewish act I can do, to stand up for justice, for everyone.”
Barred from campus, but strategizing on protests
For Howell-Egan, the crackdown at USC and her suspension only deepened her desire to speak out.
“Even with this threat of USC imposing sanctions and disciplinary measures, I am at peace with it because I am standing up for something that is important,” Howell-Egan said. “There are no more universities in Gaza. We are in an incredibly privileged position for this to be our risk.”
She is not allowed to attend in-person classes because she was suspended in May for joining protests at the private school in Los Angeles.
There has been a trend of heavier punishments for students engaging in activism than in the past, including banishment from campus and suspensions that keep students “in limbo for months,” said Tori Porell, an attorney with the nonprofit Palestine Legal, which has supported student protesters facing disciplinary measures. Howell-Egan sees it as part of a strategy to stifle free speech.
In a memo this month, USC President Carol Folt said the campus has seen peaceful protests and marches for years. “However, the spring semester brought incidents that tested our values, disregarded our policies, sparked fears, and required unprecedented safety measures,” she said.
For now the focus of the USC Divest Coalition, which includes several student organizations, has moved off campus, to incorporate the wider community and take a cautious approach as students get a handle on the university’s new rules, Howell-Egan said.
In addition to the community outreach, students have been holding teach-ins.
“The idea is to raise our skill set and our understanding of where we stand in this moment, and where we are in this fight,” Howell-Egan said, “especially as we continue with it.”
Three civilians injured as Ukraine shells Belgorod region, governor says
- Belgorod has come under frequent shelling and drone attacks from Ukraine in the course of the war
MOSCOW: Three civilians were injured in Russia’s Belgorod region after Ukrainian shells hit the town of Shebekino, the regional governor said on Saturday.
“Ambulance crews brought a woman in serious condition with shrapnel wounds to the back and thigh and a man with a shrapnel wound to the chest to the regional clinical hospital,” Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor, said in a post on his Telegram channel.
A third person was taken to hospital with a shrapnel wound to the thigh, he said, adding that two houses and four outbuildings caught fire.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
Belgorod has come under frequent shelling and drone attacks from Ukraine in the course of the war. It is next to the Kursk region, a large swath of which is occupied by Ukrainian forces following a cross-border attack last month.
How one Pakistani father defied conservative 20th-century norms to see his 13 daughters gain master’s degrees
- Fazal Haq withstood family pressure to ensure his children had the opportunity to pursue education
PESHAWAR: For Fazal Haq, a Pakistani octogenarian academic who grew up in the country’s conservative northwest, acquiring education was a gateway to empowerment and self-reliance for his children, especially his daughters.
In an era when education was a rare privilege in Pakistan’s northwestern Karak district, Haq stood as a beacon of progressive thinking by sending his first-born daughter, Nighat Parveen, to school in the 1970s.
Although he never formally attended college himself, the 82-year-old has earned postgraduate degrees in Arabic, Urdu literature, and Islamic studies. And all of his children — 13 daughters and four sons — also have higher-education qualifications.
“Fewer men attended school during his time, and the notion of women pursuing education was virtually unheard of,” Haq told Arab News this week. “Yet, despite societal constraints, I made a pioneering decision to send my daughter Parveen to school.”
Haq said his daughters’ early education proceeded smoothly but as they grew older, murmurs of dissent within his family became louder. Relatives questioned his wisdom for allowing his girls to be educated and the resistance escalated to threats of disownment, but Haq said he remained resolute and Parveen’s results in exams in both the 8th and 10th grades were better than many in their area. Her academic success reinforced Haq’s belief in his decision.
“That was a big relief, I would say one of my happiest moments,” Haq said.
Parveen, who passed her matriculation exam in 1986, told Arab News that, initially, she did not grasp the necessity of education and only saw herself fulfilling her father’s wishes on a path fraught with obstacles.
“I would often find myself as the only girl in a classroom full of boys. Sitting in a corner, isolated from my peers, I faced the weight of societal scrutiny and the discomfort of being an ‘outsider,’” she said.
“The psychological toll of being the only girl in a boys’ class was immense, but I remained steadfast in the pursuit of education.”
Parveen now stands as a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of education as she serves as the principal of Government Girls’ High School in Karak, shaping the minds of future generations.
She set the bar high for all 16 of her siblings, who now hold master’s degrees in disciplines including English literature, political science, history, botany, zoology, and physics. All of Haq’s daughters became teachers.
Haq has always seen education as a gateway to empowerment and self-reliance for women, contrary to the common perception in Pakistan’s rural communities, where most believed that investing in daughters’ education would only serve to benefit the household they joined when they married.
“Education equips women with knowledge and confidence to contribute actively to their family’s economic affairs, eliminating the need to depend on others for financial support,” he said.
Haq’s wife, Jahan Bano, had no formal education, but her ability to converse in English and engage in discussions about politics demonstrates her intellectual growth and self-confidence.
Both Haq and Bano feel proud that their perspective on women’s education, which was once widely disapproved by society, has now been embraced by those same critics.
“At this later stage of life, when I watch young girls in school uniforms going to school, college, and university from my balcony, I feel a strange sense of happiness,” Haq said.
Autopsy suggests tycoon Mike Lynch likely died of suffocation in yacht — source
- Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, an onboard cook and four guests died when the British-flagged superyacht Bayesian sank
- The bodies of the dead, except for the cook, were found in cabins on the left-hand side of the 56-meter vessel
PALERMO, Italy: British tech tycoon Mike Lynch died of suffocation after running out of oxygen, an investigative source said, citing initial examinations carried out on Saturday after his body was recovered from the family yacht that sank off Sicily’s coast last month.
Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, an onboard cook and four guests died when the British-flagged superyacht Bayesian sank during a severe and sudden weather event off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, on Aug. 19.
Initial results on Hannah Lynch’s body, whose examinations were carried out on Saturday, were inconclusive, the source told Reuters, only ruling out any traumas or wounds as the cause of death and leaving open the possibilities she either ran out of oxygen or drowned.
The bodies of the dead, except for the cook, were found in cabins on the left-hand side of the 56-meter (184-feet) vessel, where the trapped passengers may have tried to search for remaining bubbles of air, the head of Palermo’s Fire Brigade said last month.
Preliminary results from autopsies on four other victims — Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judith, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda — indicated suffocation as the likely cause of death, judicial sources said earlier this week.
Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian, and the yacht’s captain.
Initial examinations of the Canadian-Antiguan onboard chef Recaldo Thomas indicated he died by drowning, the investigative source said on Saturday.
Further forensic tests have been ordered all the victims, with results expected in the coming weeks, the source said.
The sinking has puzzled naval experts, who said a vessel like the Bayesian, built by high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, which is owned by The Italian Sea Group, should have withstood the storm and not have sunk as quickly as it did.
