Day: December 26, 2022

Heavy snow in large swaths of Japan has killed 17 and injured more than 90 people and left hundreds of homes without power, disaster management officials said Monday.

Powerful winter fronts have dumped heavy snow in northern regions since last week, stranding hundreds of vehicles on highways, delaying delivery services and causing 11 deaths by Saturday. More snowfall over the Christmas weekend brought the number of dead to 17 and injured to 93 by Monday morning, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Many of them had fallen while removing snow from the roofs or were buried underneath thick piles of snow sliding off rooftops.

Municipal offices in the snow-hit regions urged residents to use caution during snow removal activity and not to work alone.

The disaster management agency said a woman in her 70s was found dead buried underneath a thick pile of rooftop snow that suddenly fell on her in Yamagata prefecture’s Nagai City, about 300 kilometers north of Tokyo, where snow piled up higher than 80 centimeters Saturday.

In Niigata, known for rice growing, some makers of mochi, or sticky rice cakes that are staple for New Year celebration meals, said there have been delivery delays and their mochi may not reach their customers in time.

Many parts of northeastern Japan reported three times their average snowfall for the season.

Heavy snow knocked down an electric power transmission tower in Japan’s northernmost main island, leaving about 20,000 homes without power on Christmas morning, though electricity was restored in most areas later that day, according to the economy and industry ministry.

Dozens of trains and flights were also suspended in northern Japan through Sunday, but services have since mostly resumed, according to the transportation ministry.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

Christmas Day floods in the Philippines forced the evacuation of nearly 46,000 people from their homes and killed at least eight, civil defense officials said Monday.

Two people were killed and nine others were missing after heavy seasonal rain inundated parts of the southern region of Mindanao, the officials added.

The disaster dampened celebrations on the mainly Catholic nation’s most important holiday.

“The waters rose above the chest in some areas, but today the rains have ceased,” civil defense worker Robinson Lacre told AFP by phone from Gingoog city, which accounted for 33,000 of the 45,700 people evacuated from their homes.

The coastguard said it rescued members of more than two dozen families in Ozamiz city and Clarin town at the height of the flooding.

Photos released by the coastguard showed its orange-clad rescuers cradling toddlers plucked from homes in waist-deep floodwaters.

Four deaths — three from drowning — were reported in the nearby southern towns of Jimenez and Tudela.

The central and southern Philippines have been hit with bad weather as the disaster-prone nation of 110 million people began a long Christmas holiday.

Millions of people travel to their hometowns for family reunions during this period.

The coastguard also said strong winds and big waves sank a fishing boat on Christmas Day off the coast of the central island of Leyte. Two crew members were killed, while six others were rescued.

The Philippines is ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change.

Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

A Myanmar junta court will give its verdicts on five remaining charges in the 18-month trial of jailed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday, a legal source told AFP.

Suu Kyi has been a prisoner since the military toppled her government in February last year, ending the Southeast Asian nation’s brief period of democracy.

The Nobel laureate, 77, has already been found guilty on 14 charges ranging from corruption to illegally importing walkie-talkies and breaching the official secrets act, and has been jailed for 26 years.

“Both sides gave final arguments today at court,” said a source with knowledge of the case on Monday who requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

“There will be a verdict on coming Friday (30th) December.”

Suu Kyi appeared in good health, the source added.

Rights groups have slammed the trial as a sham, and on Wednesday the U.N. Security Council called on the junta to release Suu Kyi in its first resolution on the situation in Myanmar since the coup.

The resolution marked a moment of relative council unity after permanent members and close junta allies China and Russia abstained, opting not to wield vetoes following amendments to the wording.

The remaining five corruption charges Suu Kyi faces relate to the rental of a helicopter for a government minister, a case in which she had allegedly not followed regulations and caused “a loss to the state”.

Each carries a maximum jail term of 15 years. In previous corruption cases, the court has generally sentenced Suu Kyi to three years per charge.

Disappeared

Suu Kyi is currently imprisoned in a compound in the capital Naypyidaw, close to the courthouse where her trial is being held and has been deprived of her household staff and pet dog Taichido.

Since the coup, she has largely disappeared from view, seen only in grainy state media photos from the bare courtroom.

The country has been plunged into turmoil, with some established ethnic rebel groups renewing fighting with the military in border areas, and the economy in tatters.

Dozens of “People’s Defense Forces” eschewing Suu Kyi’s strict policy of non-violence have also sprung up to battle the junta and have surprised the military with their effectiveness, analysts say.

There are almost daily killings of low-level junta officials or anti-coup fighters, with details murky and reprisals often following quickly.

Analysts say the junta may allow Suu Kyi to serve some of her sentence under house arrest while it prepares for elections it has said it will hold next year.

The military alleged there was widespread voter fraud during 2020 elections won resoundingly by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, although international observers said the poll was largely free and fair.

More than 2,600 people have been killed in the military’s crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

Rights groups have accused the military of extrajudicial killings and launching air strikes on civilians that amount to war crimes..

The latest civilian death toll issued by the junta stands at over 4,000.

 

 

 

Source: Voice of America

The possible sinking of a boat in recent weeks with 180 Rohingya Muslims on board could make 2022 one of the deadliest years at sea in almost a decade for the community, a U.N. agency said, as refugees try to flee desperate conditions in Bangladesh camps.

Nearly 1 million Rohingya from Myanmar are living in crowded facilities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, including tens of thousands who fled their home country after its military conducted a deadly crackdown in 2017.

The number of Rohingya leaving Bangladesh in boats this year has jumped more than five fold from a year earlier, rights groups estimate. It is not clear if the lifting of COVID restrictions in Southeast Asia, a favored destination, has led to the rush of people.

In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, most Rohingya are denied citizenship and are seen as illegal immigrants from South Asia.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it feared that a boat that set sail at the end of November was missing, with all 180 on board presumed dead.

The UNHCR said the vessel, which was not seaworthy, may have started to crack in early December before losing contact. It added it was not clear where the boat started, but three Rohingya men, including one whose family were onboard, said it set off from Bangladesh.

Nearly 200 Rohingya were already feared dead or missing at sea this year. “We hope against hope that the 180 missing are still alive somewhere,” said UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch.

The UNHCR estimates nearly 900 Rohingya died or went missing in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2013 and more than 700 in 2014.

“One of the worst years for dead and missing after 2013 and 2014,” Baloch said of 2022, adding the number of people trying to flee had returned to levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Trends show the numbers reaching back to 2020, when over 2,400 people attempted the risky sea crossings with more than 200 people dead or missing.”

The number of Rohingya leaving Bangladesh in boats this year has jumped more than fivefold this year from a year earlier, rights groups estimate.

Thai authorities said four women and one man were found floating near Thailand’s Surin island and another woman at Similan islands and were rescued by fishermen. Authorities had not yet confirmed their identities.

A local fisherman told Reuters he and his crew had rescued people hanging onto a floating water tank.

UNHCR’s Baloch said 2022 was one of the worst years for dead and missing after 2013 and 2014, when 900 and 700 Rohingya died or went missing in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal after inter-communal violence forced them to flee.

“Left to die”

Sayedur Rahman, 38, who fled to Malaysia in 2012 from Myanmar, said his wife and three teenaged children were among the missing on the vessel.

“In 2017, my family came to Bangladesh to save their lives,” Rahman said. “But they are now all gone … I’m totally devastated… We Rohingya are left to die … on the land, at sea. Everywhere.”

Bangladesh has in the past arrested people smugglers. The densely populated country has also asked the international community to help it ease the load of hosting so many refugees.

Earlier this month, two Rohingya activist groups said that up to 20 people died of hunger or thirst on a boat, carrying at least 100 people, that was stranded for two weeks off India’s coast, before possibly drifting to Malaysian waters.

India’s coastguard had no immediate response. The UNHCR said it was a separate boat to the one carrying 180.

On Monday the International Organization for Migration said that 57 Rohingya reached Indonesia’s Aceh Besar district on Sunday after nearly a month adrift.

Indonesian officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Two boats carrying a total of 230 Rohingya, including women and children, landed on the shores of Indonesia’s Aceh province in November, while this month, Sri Lanka’s navy rescued 104 Rohingya.

“Life in the camp is full of uncertainties, there is no hope that they can go back home soon,” said Mohammed Imran, a former Rohingya community leader who has returned to Bangladesh from Malaysia.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

North Korea sent several small drones into South Korean airspace Monday, Seoul officials said, prompting South Korea’s military to fly its own unmanned surveillance aircraft north of the sensitive border.

South Korea also scrambled fighter jets and attack helicopters to respond to the North Korean incursion but failed to bring down any of the drones, according to South Korean military officials.

While one of the drones returned to North Korea, the status of four others is not known, said South Korean military officials who spoke to reporters on background late Monday.

It’s not clear if the North Korean drones were armed, though South Korean officials say they were small – with a wingspan of only about 2 meters.

North Korea has sent tiny, crudely built UAVs into South Korea for apparent surveillance missions at least four other times since 2014, though this is the first reported incursion in more than five years.

Monday’s incident appeared particularly brazen, as the North Korean drones were reported to have flown around populated areas of South Korea for much of the day.

The first North Korean UAV crossed the border near South Korea’s northeast island of Ganghwa at 10:25 am local time and was quickly followed by the others, according to South Korean military officials.

Four of the drones flew near Ganghwa, while the other flew as far as the northern part of the Seoul metropolitan area, which is approximately 50 kilometers away, officials added.

As of 8:00 pm local time, there was no indication that any of the drones had been captured. There were no reports of damage in South Korea.

According to South Korea’s transport ministry, aircraft departures were temporarily halted at South Korea’s main Incheon Airport and the smaller Gimpo Airport, both of which are close to the reported North Korean intrusions.

The incident is likely to raise questions about South Korea’s ability to prevent North Korean drone incursions and whether the South Korean military acted quickly enough to stop the unmanned vehicles.

According to a South Korean military background briefing, South Korea fired about 100 shots but failed to bring down any of the North Korean drones.

One of the South Korean aircraft involved in the response – a KA-1 light attack aircraft – crashed east of Seoul, though officials have not explained why. Neither pilot in the plane was injured, officials said.

In response, South Korea’s military said it sent a drone into North Korea on a reconnaissance mission. The South Korean drone reached about as far into the North as the North Korean drones intruded into the South, before returning south of the border, officials added.

In a statement, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff condemned North Korea’s “clear act of provocation” and vowed the South would continue to respond “thoroughly and firmly” to North Korea.

This is the first known North Korean drone incursion into South Korea since 2017, when a suspected North Korean drone mounted with a camera took photos of a U.S. anti-missile battery before crashing on its way back to the North.

In 2014, a similar North Korean unmanned aerial vehicle took pictures of military installations and even the residence of South Korea’s president before crashing near the border.

South Korean officials say the drones identified Monday appeared to be similar to those used in the 2014 and 2017 incidents.

North Korea has not commented on the incursion, but in the past has denied sending spy drones into South Korea.

North Korea has steadily ramped up tensions this year, launching a record number of missiles and conducting artillery shelling in sensitive border areas.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who took office in May, has responded with corresponding shows of military might, often within a few hours of the North Korean provocations.

 

 

Source: Voice of America