Day: September 15, 2022

At least six people have died and 2,457 have been infected in Myanmar since the start of the month amid an outbreak of a new omicron variant of COVID-19, the junta’s Ministry of Health announced Thursday.

The ministry announced the numbers for the two weeks ending Sept. 14, noting that 384 infections and one death had been recorded on Wednesday alone.

Charity groups told RFA Burmese that the ministry’s announcement was based only on the number of patients who were treated at junta-run hospitals, suggesting that the actual number of infections is much higher.

A doctor who runs a private clinic in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon said that most patients who come seeking treatment exhibit signs of COVID-19, even if they aren’t being included in the junta’s official count of infections.

“There are fewer people wearing masks these days. Many shops have reopened and more people are going to bars and cafes,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Additionally, many people who need cooking oil stand in long lines at charity centers without any regard to rules of social distancing, so COVID is making a comeback.”

The doctor told RFA that because the genetics of the disease have changed with the new variant, symptoms such as loss of smell and low oxygen levels have become less obvious.

“But the rate of infection is increasing,” he said. “When we perform tests on patients, we find it in nearly all of them.”

He predicted that the number of infections will only increase in the country unless measures are put into place to prevent transmission.

Other priorities

A resident of Yangon, who also declined to be named, said that the junta’s mismanagement of the economy has left people more concerned with ensuring that they have enough food to eat than the risks associated with the disease.

“People are not very careful about COVID at present. They are working hard to obtain their daily sustenance, so COVID is enjoying a resurgence,” he said.

“Most people don’t even know they have the virus. They only find out they have it after getting tested. Low income laborers couldn’t care less about COVID, as their priority is finding enough food to eat.”

The Yangon resident called the situation “critical” and suggested that, with the rising cost of medicine due to inflation, the outbreak’s toll is only likely to get worse.

Myanmar was hit with a third wave of the coronavirus shortly after the military seized power in a February coup last year prompting the country’s workers – including its health professionals – to strike as part of a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement. The shortage of doctors and nurses, as well as a dearth of medicine and equipment, allowed the disease to spread largely unchecked.

This time around, said Khin Maung Tint, the chairman of a Mandalay-based social assistance association, organizations such as his were prepared, having stockpiled medicine and equipment in case of a new outbreak.

“Our main challenge is the rise in petrol prices,” he said. “People are also enduring financial difficulties and so we are currently providing care for free in most cases.”

However, he warned that without help from authorities to curb the outbreak, “we could run out of supplies, and that would be difficult for us.”

Preventing transmission

On Thursday, the junta’s Information Ministry announced to the media that mass infections had been recorded in several schools and workplaces. It said authorities are “working with relevant departments to enforce COVID prevention.”

Some 80% of infections since the start of the year occurred in patients who had not received vaccinations, the ministry said.

Attempts by RFA to contact junta Ministry of Health spokesperson Than Naing Soe for details on efforts to control the spread of the disease went unanswered Thursday.

A CDM doctor, who asked to be identified by the name Olivia, urged the public to follow simple practices such as wearing masks, washing hands and adhering to social distancing guidelines, which she said would go a long way in helping to combat the outbreak in Myanmar.

“Prices are rising fast — from basic foods to essential medicines,” she said.

“If your health is affected, medical expenses will add a huge burden on your shoulders. So take care now more than ever — even twice as much as the last outbreak.”

To date, 617,739 people have been infected with COVID-19 and 19,444 have died since the pandemic first spread throughout Myanmar in 2020, according to the Ministry of Health. More than 36 million of the country’s 54.4 million people have been vaccinated against the disease.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Tibetan netizens are taking to social media to air their frustrations with the Chinese government’s zero COVID policy, which has completely shut down Lhasa and other areas of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), sources in the region told RFA.

COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the TAR. According to official figures from the Chinese government, there were 16,902 confirmed cases in the region through Tuesday, across 147 “substantial or high COVID transmissible areas” and 158 “medium-level transmissible areas.”

The Chinese government imposed a lockdown 31 days ago in Lhasa as COVID numbers there and throughout China continued to climb. The netizens say the lockdown order came without enough time to prepare, leaving people in some cases short of food. Finding treatments for COVID-19 positive patients has also proven difficult.

“Lhasa has been under lockdown for almost a month now,” a Tibetan living in Lhasa told RFA’s Tibetan Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The Chinese government has been fumbling through the hastily ordered lockdown, the source said. 

“A man bleeding from his nose was locked inside a quarantine facility, and the officials in charge were not able to find the keys to open the door so that they could take him to a hospital. The man remained in that poor condition for almost two days,” the source said.

“In another facility, someone had a stroke and due to communication issues between the hospitals and officials, he could not reach the hospital sooner,” the source said. “The patient is now in the hospital but remains unconscious. So even though the Chinese government has set up facilities to lock people down, there are no proper treatments for them.”  

Nowhere to complain 

Tibetans on Chinese social media short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou criticized the quarantine facilities.

“There is no one attending or treating the COVID patients and there is no sanitization in this facility,” a Tibetan in one of the facilities said in one of the videos. 

“Above all, there are no officials or offices where we can complain about these [conditions],” the source said.

Another Tibetan in one of the facilities said they were “empty houses without beds.”

“If you walk around, you can actually see dust falling down from the roof, which is unhealthy for COVID patients,” the second netizen said. “Food does not arrive on time and by the time it reaches us it has all spoiled.”

Another netizen posted a video blaming quarantine procedures for spreading COVID-19.

“We see this rise in COVID cases in Lhasa because the officials who test the public never sanitize their hands, and so this cycle goes on and on,” the third netizen said.

RFA was unable to confirm that Chinese authorities spread the virus at testing sites.

Others posted photos and videos of infected people standing around the streets of Lhasa for hours because the government is overwhelmed and cannot quickly transport them to designated facilities.

“Local officials forced me into lockdown without any verification whether I have COVID or not,” a Tibetan from Karma Monastery in Lhasa told RFA. 

“They made me wait by the roadside for almost three hours before they took me to the facility for a day and then released me. There were around 600 people with me in those lockdown facilities and now I am worried I might have COVID.” 

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Vietnamese President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has commuted the death sentence of Dang Van Hien and reduced it to life in prison, Hien’s wife, Mai Thi Khuyen, told RFA on Thursday. 

Hien was sentenced to death by the Dak Nong People’s Court in January 2018 for shooting employees of the Long Son Company who had come to confiscate his home and land in October 2016.  Three people were killed in the incident and 13 injured.

“[I am] extremely happy and moved. Everyone in our family cheered, relatives from both sides [her and his relatives] and friends, all are sending us their congratulations,” Khuyen told RFA. She said that since her husband’s arrest, her family has encountered significant financial difficulties. She has had to work as a farmer to support her family and pay compensation to the victims of the incident. 

Hien’s sentence was widely controversial in Vietnam, where authorities regularly authorize private companies to appropriate land for large-scale projects, often at the expense of individual landowners. The Ho Chi Minh City’s High-Level People’s Court upheld Hien’s sentence at an appeal trial six months after his conviction. 

Del. Luu Binh Nhuong, who serves as the deputy head of the National Assembly’s Committee on People’s Aspirations, said in October 2019 that he had forwarded a petition from Hien’s lawyers asking for leniency to his committee to Nguyen Phu Trong, who at the time was president of Vietnam, state media reported.

The petition described Hein as a hard-working farmer without a prior criminal record and argued that the shooting was the result of emotional stress, anger and pressure that employees from the Long Son Company, including the victims, had put on Hien at his residence. The petition said that the employees carried out an unlawful eviction despite Hien’s protests.

In July 2018, then Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang publicly requested the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the Ministry of Public Security investigate Dang Van Hien’s case.

The reassessed sentence, which moves Hien off death row and into life imprisonment, appears to end a years-long process that caught the attention of Vietnamese citizens from across the country, many of whom expressed frustration at the government’s land appropriation policies.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written by Nawar Nemeh.

Economically ailing North Korea desperately wants to resume rail freight with China, and to a lesser extent, Russia, but sources, including a government official, told RFA that the decision to reopen the rails lies with Beijing and Moscow.

North Korea is particularly dependent on trade and aid from China, its main ally and trading partner. Restrictions on the flow of goods from the country during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns devastated North Korea’s already chronically unstable economy.

Rail freight between the border cities of Dandong, China and Sinuiju, North Korea resumed in November 2021, but shut down after only a week after a resurgence of the virus in China. Rail freight re-opened in January 2022, but shut down again in late April.

A trade company official last month told RFA that rail freight would resume on Aug. 8 or 9, but that did not happen, and the suspension has extended into mid-September.

“Trade agencies have not yet been officially notified as to when freight train service between Sinuiju and Dandong, … will resume,” an official from Sinuiju’s surrounding North Pyongan province told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“The international freight train has been waiting at Sinuiju Station since the beginning of August. It is ready, waiting only for instructions from the Central Committee to depart for Dandong,” he said.

Dandong and Sinuiju lie on opposite sides of the Yalu River, and the rail bridge between them has essentially been the lifeblood artery for North Korea for the past decade, as trade with China has accounted for about 90 percent of all foreign trade in North Korea.

In 2019, prior to the pandemic, trade volume was more than U.S. $3.2 billion, but in 2020 that fell to $863 million, according to figures from the Seoul-based Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). 

The North Korean government acknowledges the importance of Chinese trade, but it cannot decide to resume trade on its own.

“The timing … depends on the Chinese, not us,” the source said. “The trains are ready to go, but only when the Chinese government opens up Dandong customs again.”

“There is a rumor that some of the freight service between Sinuiju and Dandong will resume this month, but we will wait and see how it will go. We all hope for at least a partial resumption,” he said. “They predict it may happen in mid-October, after the Chinese Communist Party’s national convention.”

Russian rescue?

Though the status of trade with China remains up in the air, Russia’s isolation resulting from its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year may serve as a catalyst for the resumption of trade with North Korea.

“Friendly relations between North Korea and Russia have improved remarkably, so freight train service between the two countries is expected to resume before the end of this month,” a source from the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA.

But he said there has been no official word on if the rails would reopen between North Korea’s Tuman River Station and Russia’s Khasan Station.

 “The timing … coincides with Russia’s decision to supply oil and gas to North Korea, so it’s Russia that has final say,” the second source said. 

Russia has agreed to purchase artillery shells and rockets from North Korea to aid in its war effort, according to U.S. intelligence. Observers have speculated that North Korea could receive discounted crude oil and fuel in the deal. 

The second source said members of the North Korean military expect that the deal will happen. 

“I heard it from a border guard officer in the Tuman River area who knew the facts well,” he said.

On September 11th, North Korean media reported that the Russian government sent a congratulatory message to mark the 74th anniversary of the establishment of the regime in North Korea. The message included that Russia is ready to strengthen cooperation with North Korea in all areas.

“We are seeing two desperate countries cooperating with each other to address their respective ‘deficits,’” Soo Kim, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation told RFA on Sept. 7.

“Should both countries be further pushed to the brink, we may see greater cooperation between the two nations on a need-basis,” she said. 

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A newspaper backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has criticized thousands of Hong Kong mourners who gave condolences or left floral tributes for the Queen, saying further efforts are needed to erase a “colonial mentality” from people’s minds.

Overseas media reports have featured photos of people kneeling to show respect in front of floral offerings on the city’s streets, with some bringing traditional food offerings in the manner of a funeral.

“The anti-China media have made a big deal of this, saying it reflects nostalgia for British colonial rule among Hong Kong people,” the Ta Kung Wen Hui website said in a Sept. 13 editorial. “It shows there are still some people in Hong Kong who have deep-rooted beliefs.”

“The colonial mentality that still exists in very few people is worthy of attention,” the paper said, linking it to the 2019 protest movement, which began as a mass protest against extradition to mainland China, and broadened to include calls for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.

“Some people have woken up, but some are still indulging in this fantasy that they are subjects of the British Empire,” the paper said. “The colonial government may be gone, but decolonization has yet to begin.”

It said a start had been made with the abolition of the Liberal Studies critical thinking program in Hong Kong’s schools, and its replacement with a nationalistic program of Moral, Civic and National Education, with primary and secondary schools now also required to promote a draconian national security law to staff and students.

Opera singer apologizes

The criticism appears to have hit home to some in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong opera singer Kar-ying Law apologized on Chinese social media after laying flowers for the late Queen Elizabeth II at the British consulate, vowing in Mandarin rather than Hong Kong’s lingua franca, Cantonese: “I will always love my motherland.”

“As a public figure, I am very sorry that I posted thoughtless words of condolence,” Law said. “My original intention is to express my nostalgia for the old lady.”

“I have had a Chinese passport for a long time now, which should tell you everything. I am Chinese, and will always love the motherland,” Law said, bowing and clasping his hands to his heart.

As well as laying flowers, Law had commented that Hong Kong had been “blessed under the protection of the Queen,” drawing the ire of pro-CCP supporters known as Little Pinks.

Hong Kong historian Hans Yeung, who now lives in the U.K., said Hong Kongers’ nostalgia for colonial times was a complex emotion.

“The reason we are seeing these mourning activities is that the current way of governing is different from the way it was in Hong Kong more than 20 years ago, and the emotions that result from that difference between the old and the new,” Yeung told RFA.

“It’s not necessarily the idea that we miss colonial times because things were so good back then, but because the current government is so poor,” he said.

Patriotic education

Yeung said some mourners were too young to remember an era in which the Queen’s portrait was in every classroom, and TV stations shut down every night with “God Save the Queen.”

He said younger people likely have read about Hong Kong before the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, and drawn their own conclusions.

“National education [nowadays] forces students to use positive thinking to understand the current political situation and the issues China faces, but it doesn’t engage them emotionally,” Yeung said. “It just teaches them that things are so bad politically in Hong Kong right now that they had better repeat the slogans properly.”

“The more experience they have of national education, the sooner students may wake up … to how serious the problem is,” he said.

Former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law said on his Facebook page that the mourning is a form of permitted dissent under an ongoing, citywide crackdown on peaceful dissent and political opposition under the national security law that has seen more than 10,000 arrests and some 2,800 prosecutions.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.