Day: June 29, 2022

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia)— Southeast Asia will remain an important region to Australia says Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong (left in the picture), who also emphasised on the new Australian government’s commitment to ASEAN centrality.

Wong who is currently on a three-day official visit to Malaysia said on Tuesday that Australia’s future is interlinked with both ASEAN and Southeast Asia’s future.

“We share the same future because we share the same region, and that is how we will approach relationships and many of the challenges we face,” she said.

“The Australian Government remains committed to ASEAN Centrality and we see ASEAN as the center of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous region in which sovereignty is respected,” she told a joint news conference with Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah after a bilateral meeting at the latter’s office here.

She said Australia is also privileged and honoured to be a Comprehensive Strategic Partner of ASEAN, adding that during her visit to Jakarta with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese early this month, she had the opportunity to meet with the ASEAN secretary-general and other permanent representatives to discuss the way forward in building on the stronger partnership.

Australia and ASEAN joined the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership arrangement in October 2021.

On Australia, United Kingdom and the United States trilateral security pact better known through the acronym AUKUS, the Foreign Minister said under the agreement Australian government had intended to replace the existing diesel-powered submarines with nuclear-propelled submarines.

“We are talking about nuclear propulsion not nuclear weapon,” she said allaying the misconception on the security pact and the submarines.

Elaborating further, Wong said her new government is also taking time to listen and explain to various parties regarding their concern on the matter.

AUKUS, which was announced in September last year had caused major security concerns among states in the region that feared it could further raise tension in the region.

On a different note, Wong who was born in Malaysia before moving to Australia since young had described her visit here this time as a special day.

As part of her visit itinerary here, Wong is also scheduled to meet with Senior Minister of International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali and Senior Minister of Defence Hishammuddin Hussein before flying to Kota Kinabalu (capital city of east Malaysian state Sabah) on Wednesday where she would also meet with several state leaders.

Before arriving in Malaysia, Wong was in Vietnam on Monday. After her appointment as the foreign minister early this month she was in Indonesia with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

TEHRAN, Jun 29 (NNN-IRNA) – The talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal resumed yesterday, as Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani met with EU coordinator, Enrique Mora, in the Qatari capital, Doha.

The nuclear negotiations will be held indirectly with the United States, and facilitated by the EU, said the Iranian Foreign Ministry, in an earlier statement.

Iran’s negotiating team, headed by Kani, arrived in Doha earlier yesterday, to resume the talks that have been suspended for three months, Iranian Ambassador to Qatar, Hamidreza Dehghani, wrote in a tweet.

The resumption of the talks was announced on Saturday, at a joint televised press conference held in Tehran by Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and visiting EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

The gains achieved by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in the past six years serve as a challenge for the incoming administration of elected President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr.

The admission came from incoming Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Secretary Susan ‘Toots’ Ople during yesterday’s inauguration of the country’s first OFW-dedicated medical institution in San Fernando, Pampanga.

Ople was keynote speaker for the special occasion which signals the highly anticipated opening of the OFW Hospital – a 100-bed and 6-story facility with state of the art equipment and competent personnel to serve the medical needs of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families for free.

Introduced by outgoing Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Ople said the OFW Hospital is one of the many important undertakings of DOLE which the next government would be challenged to sustain.

“DOLE has made a lot of projects that would be a challenge for us,” Ople said.

Ople will join other key executives chosen by Marcos to run his Cabinet in assuming their posts after the inauguration of President Duterte’s successor tomorrow.

The DMW was created to centralize its services for OFWs. The move aims to put all OFW-related agencies under one department. They include the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) and the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB) which are about to be fully detached from DOLE.

“I’m happy that aside from the OFW Hospital and other projects of DOLE, we will be inheriting more from the outgoing administration,” Ople said, referring to POEA chief Bernard Olalia and OWWA head Hans Leo Cacdac. During her speech, she announced both Olalia and Cacdac will join her to lead DMW.

Among other executives, the two officials are key to Bello’s fruitful reign in DOLE which saw the massive and successful repatriation of more than a million OFWs affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under Bello, the Labor Department also maintained industrial peace in the country by promoting tripartism among the workers, employers, and the government.

Despite the challenges brought by the global health outbreak, Bello led DOLE in delivering the government’s mandate to help distressed workers via its initiatives topped by the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program.

Bello also initiated the assistance program called AKAP for OFWs displaced by the pandemic. Close to 600,000 OFWs benefited from the program.

Source: DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT REPUBLIC OF PHILIPPINES

Myanmar’s military junta is responsible for shocking violence against children caught up in the bloody aftermath of last February’s coup, a top independent Human Rights Council-appointed investigator said on Wednesday.

Three months since his last update to the UN rights forum in Geneva, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thomas Andrews, said that he’d met youngsters who’d fled the country after suffering “irreparable harm”.

Empty seat

Myanmar – whose seat was empty in the Council – “passed several grim milestones since March”, he continued: “more than 2,500 civilians have now been killed in the junta’s bloody campaign against its opponents; over one million people are now internally displaced.”

The number of arbitrarily detained political prisoners now exceeds 11,000, Mr. Andrews said, before warning that the junta “has announced that executions will soon begin of political prisoners who have been put on death row”.

Amid widespread public opposition to Myanmar’s de facto rulers, the independent rights expert described how the military had “trained its guns on growing numbers of villagers and other non-combatants” and “accelerated a brutal campaign of arson and murder in the northwest.

Children killed and maimed

The task of reporting on such abuses has been complicated by internet shutdowns which “which, of course is the intention, the very intention, of the military”, Mr. Andrews said, before describing in detail the abuse meted out to youngsters suspected of having links to opposition fighters.

“At least 382 children have been killed or maimed; more than 1,400 children have been arbitrarily detained…142 children have been tortured since the coup.”

He added: “These children have been beaten, cut and stabbed; they have been burned with cigarettes; they have had their fingernails and teeth pulled out; they have been forced to hold stress positions; they have been subjected to mock executions; they have been sexually assaulted.”

War crimes charge

Such crimes and “repeated attacks on civilians” constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity, insisted the Special Rapporteur, who is an independent and unpaid rights expert, appointed by the Human Rights Council for three years, in line with special procedures mandates.

Failure to take action soon risks an even worse humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, where relief work has been seriously hampered because the UN’s 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan for Myanmar is only 10.5 per cent funded. “This has meant that lifesaving programs have had to be suspended,” Mr. Andrews explained.

Neglected

Some “33,000 children could die of preventable deaths this year alone, merely because they have missed routine immunizations,” the Special Rapporteur added. “Five million children require urgent humanitarian assistance. Experts warn of a looming food crisis and the possibility of a dramatic increase in rates of childhood malnutrition and stunting.

“Physical and sexual abuse, the trafficking of children and child labour are all on the rise. Girls are particularly vulnerable to forced marriage and sexual exploitation.”

When will the Security Council act?

After insisting that the international community’s approach to Myanmar “is not working”, Mr. Andrews urged the Security Council to take action.

“The people of Myanmar continue to wait for the Security Council to even consider a resolution about Myanmar,” he said. “Some Members have failed to impose sanctions on the junta, even when they have done so in response to other crises. Member States who have adopted sanctions have too often failed to strategically coordinate these sanctions. Many have failed to target the junta’s largest sources of revenue and their ability to move funds. ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus has failed to generate any tangible outcomes.”

Source: United Nation