A move by the Lao government to shut down money-changing shops in an effort to rein in rampant inflation has upset business owners, who say the move is crimping their businesses by making it more difficult to buy construction materials and consumer goods from neighboring Thailand.
Lao is a rather poor, landlocked country whose economy relies on such imports that aren’t produced domestically, and businesses typically need to exchange the Lao kip for Thai baht or U.S. dollars to transact business. Others keep the foreign currencies on hand as the kip continues to lose value.
The government has started to take dramatic steps to tame inflation that has reached nearly 40 percent and a steady depreciation of the kip that has raised the price of food and other essentials for daily life, forcing some people to get second jobs.
In November, the central bank ordered three quarters of the country’s currency exchange shops operated by commercial banks to close, and on Jan. 13 it ordered the remaining 113 shut. Apparently, many shops had not been following state banking regulations and gave their customers favorable exchange rates.
Now everyone needs to go to state-run banks to change money. This will also increase foreign currency reserves at national banks so the government can pay off its debt.
“The [central bank] ordered all of them to close, and if they want to reopen, they have to reapply and follow the rules and regulations of state banks,” said the owner of a currency exchange shop.
But people are now complaining that state banks have shorter hours, and that there are fewer state bank branches in rural areas. And that they aren’t getting as good an exchange rate as they did before at the privately-run money-changers.
A Lao economic expert said the central bank’s decision would especially affect those who order products from Thailand. Most banks and money-changers in Thailand don’t accept the kip, so if people can’t go to a state bank, they need to go to a third country to change money.
“The negative impact of the closing of private exchange shops is that businesses owners and Laotians will have hard time getting foreign currency exchange like the Thai baht and U.S. dollar because most of them go to Thailand to buy goods and merchandise,” said the expert, who requested anonymity so he could speak openly about the situation.
Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Translated by Malcolm Foster.
Human rights groups are criticizing a reported deal between Myanmar’s military and an Israeli tech firm for intercept spyware, accusing the company of aiding and abetting the junta in crimes against humanity.
Israel’s Cognyte Software won a tender to sell the intercept spyware to Myanmar shortly before the February 2021 coup, when the military ousted the democratically elected government, documents obtained by activist group Justice for Myanmar showed.
Intercept spyware allows governments to listen to telephone calls, read text messages and emails, and determine the whereabouts of internet users without having to go through internet and telecommunications companies.
These documents, which detailed the Myanmar military’s plan to install “lawful interception” tools on telecommunications networks, were the basis of a legal complaint in Israel, and a letter associated with the documents called for the country to ban Cognyte’s marketing and export license.
“The term ‘lawful interception’ creates a false impression of normalcy that obscures the fact that Israelis are once again aiding and abetting crimes against humanity,” Israeli human rights leader Eitay Mack, who led the effort to file the complaint.
Such a deal would violate a 2017 ban imposed by Israel’s Supreme Court on defense transfers to Myanmar, the campaign for which was also headed by Mack.
Used to violate human rights
Rights groups, observers, and the shadow National Unity Government say that the junta has been using the technology to violate its citizens’ human rights.
“We can say that Israel is one of the top countries in surveillance tech. That’s why the technical support that the Myanmar military received from [Cognyte] must be really sophisticated and effective,” Kyaw Saw Han, a security analyst, told Radio Free Asia’s Burmese Service.
He said the intercept spyware will have a negative impact on civilians by further depriving them of their freedom to communicate. The junta has already imposed draconian restrictions on the internet in some parts of the country, and has blocked access to Facebook.
With the spyware, the military could listen in on people’s private conversations or even record them, Kyaw Saw Han said.
“It will especially hurt the resistance forces that are operating in this political situation,” he said, referring to armed groups opposed to the junta, many of which sprung up after the coup.
Rebel groups believe they have been compromised by the intercept technology, although they don’t have proof, Khun Daniel of the Karenni National Progressive Party told RFA.
“Their ground activities, food transportation and guerrilla operations have been hindered and many members have been arrested because of the information insecurity caused by the military’s use of such equipment,” he said.
But the technology empowers the junta not only against armed enemies. It can also use the tech against civilians, said Yadanar Maung, a Justice for Myanmar spokesperson.
Call for Israeli government to take action
He said the military can eavesdrop and intercept the phone calls of political activists, journalists and civilians that can lead to arrests, torture and even killings.
That is why Justice for Myanmar has requested that the Israeli government take action against those responsible for the reported deal between Cognyte and the military.
“If a company provides equipment to assist an organization in aggressively and cruelly torture and kill innocent civilians, or if such support is found, they are also partially complicit in these crimes, according to legal and literal point of view,” Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a political analyst, told RFA.
But Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, told RFA that the technology is very effective in helping them with “counter-terrorism threats” – addressing security threats to the military and government leaders.
“It is no longer uncommon to violate and eavesdrop on the personal information of individuals. There have been many cases when we can prevent certain security-related threats just by such interception,” he said. “If this system can actually run at full power, it would be very beneficial.”
Thein Tun Oo said that although human rights groups are urging countries to impose an arms embargo against Myanmar, it will not be effective because large international arms companies tend to prioritize their economic interests.
RFA attempted to contact Cognyte and a spokesperson for the junta for comment on Friday, but received no reply as of Monday.
13 countries fingered, including US
According to a Jan. 16 report by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent experts working to support human rights efforts in the country, the Myanmar military is using weapons technologies and raw materials for producing weapons from companies in 13 countries including the United States, France, Australia, Japan, Germany, India, Singapore, China and Ukraine.
Kyaw Zaw, the spokesman for the president’s office of the shadow National Unity Government, told RFA that the world must stop providing the junta with military tools.
“The NUG government wants to request that governments, including Israel, order an injunction to prevent any equipment, whether it’s non-weapons technology, or communication technology or any technology that supports violence, from being sold to the Myanmar military, because it is committing inhumane violence in Myanmar.”
He said that the United Nations and the international community need to sanction companies that cooperate with the Myanmar military junta.
Although the UN Security Council passed a resolution on the crisis in Myanmar on Dec. 21, the decision does not yet include a ban on arms sales to the Myanmar military. Russia and China–key suppliers of weaponry to the junta–would have veto power over such a proposal.
Yanghee Lee, a member of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, said “Foreign companies are enabling Myanmar’s military to produce weapons it uses to commit daily rights atrocities against the Myanmar people.”
In order to protect the people of Myanmar, the council in its report urged UN member countries to block the support that the Myanmar military receives, including taking targeted action against arms dealers and those responsible for supplying weapons factories.
Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
Myanmar’s junta jets dropped bombs over the weekend on the home of the leader of an ethnic Karen group that has not been fighting the military, appearing to violate an 8-year-old ceasefire, local residents told Radio Free Asia.
The strike destroyed the home of Major Saw A Wan, commander of the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army’s, or DKBA, Tactical Operation Command, but he and his family were away at the time. It also destroyed a nearby guest house, high school and two employee quarters, the residents added.
No one was killed in the early Saturday bombing, but one DKBA soldier was reportedly injured.
The strike comes despite the group being a signatory to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, signed under the previous military government of Thein Sein in 2015 with various ethnic armed rebel armies.
Colonel Saw Sein Win, chief of staff at the DKBA, told RFA that his group is neutral and hasn’t been involved in helping resistance to junta rule since the February 2021 coup.
“We are neutral. We maintain a close relationship with the military. On the other hand, we have occasional contact with the Karen National Union,” the colonel said, alluding to one of the major Karen rebel groups in Myanmar. “Despite our close ties and all the diplomacy, this (attack) happened, and we were surprised.“
He also suggested that the attack could have been carried out by a separatist faction from the DKBA, saying the group saw fighters defecting to the military last year.
“They still have all the DKBA uniforms. They were fighting with the military wearing our uniforms, we would normally be accused of being involved in anti-junta activities,” he said. “Arm badges can also be bought at shops as well.”
A witness close to the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army said the Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, attack by Myanmar junta aircraft on the residence and office of the DKBA’s Major Saw A Wan lasted 15 minutes and included bombs and machine guns. Credit: Citizen journalist
The DKBA was one of the groups that responded to the military’s peace talks invitation in the coup’s aftermath, with DKBA Commander-in-Chief General Saw Steel personally attending the talks with coup leader and Myanmar’s de facto leader Min Aung Hlaing.
Analysts told RFA that the attack was a unilateral breach of peace between the ruling military and the DKBA.
One eyewitness close to the DKBA said that the attack lasted almost 15 minutes.
“All I could see was the light. I could not see the jets nor did I hear their sound. The guest house, which was about a hundred feet away from his house, collapsed and was destroyed,” the witness said. “The bomb didn’t hit his home directly but its stairs and handrails were cut in half just by blisters of the bombs.”
Since the coup, the military has been frequently conducting airstrikes on areas where ethnic armed groups and anti-junta People’s Defense Force militias are located.
Military spokesperson General Zaw Min Tun did not respond to RFA’s telephone request for comments on the attack today, and neither the junta nor the DKBA have released official information on the strike.
Authorities in China have prevented the wife of an exiled political bookstore owner from leaving the country to rejoin her husband and their three children in the United States, Radio Free Asia has learned.
Xie Fang, wife of former Jifeng Bookstore founder Yu Miao said in a statement posted to social media, dated January 2023, that she returned to Shanghai from the United States on Jan. 12, 2022, to take care of her sick mother.
“After the lifting of the zero-COVID policy, I was scheduled to return to the United States … so that I could catch up with the start of my twin daughters’ senior year of high school, my son’s graduate school, and my husband’s college start,” she wrote.
“But I was stopped by border inspection guards at (Shanghai’s) Pudong Airport, who said I had … endangered national security or some such thing,” Xie wrote in a statement circulating on various social media platforms and reposted by the U.S.-based China Digital Times.
The case highlights how Chinese authorities have tried to use exit bans to compel people to cooperate with official investigations.
In fact, Xie’s travel ban came as the U.S. State Department updated its China travel advisory to warn of this exact thing. It said American citizens need to “be more cautious” about going there and that Chinese authorities can put pressure on family members of the restricted person to go back to China.
“In most cases, U.S. citizens only become aware of an exit ban when they attempt to depart the PRC, and there is no reliable mechanism or legal process to find out how long the ban might continue or to contest it in a court of law,” it warned.
“Relatives, including minor children, of those under investigation in the PRC may become subject to an exit ban,” it said.
Ran afoul
Yu, Xie and their children left the country after the Shanghai authorities effectively shut down his Jifeng Bookstore in 2018.
The store likely ran afoul of the ruling Chinese Communist Party with its regular hosting of political seminars, and had specialized in high-quality academic books on politics, philosophy, law and history.
Yu said at the time that local authorities had interfered with the store’s negotiations for new premises after it was forced out of its home at the end of its lease, according to a Jul. 16, 2017, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.
Since she was blocked, police have talked to Xie many times, she said, asking if her husband had published any articles under his pseudonym in the United States and what articles he had uploaded. She said had “actively cooperated” with police in forwarding their questions to Yu, and Yu’s reply to the police.
Xie said police were now demanding that Yu return to China, before she would be allowed to leave to take care of her teenage daughters.
“I am innocent, and I will get my freedom to leave the country back, as long as my husband returns to China for investigation,” her statement said.
Xie said complying with the request could put the couple’s three children in jeopardy, with no legal guardian to take care of them until Xie’s return — if the authorities even allowed that to happen as promised.
“I implore your department to restore my freedom as soon as possible so that I can be reunited with my family,” she wrote.
Taken hostage
U.S.-based activist Zhou Fengsuo, who founded the rights group Humanitarian China, said via his Twitter account that he is worried about the travel ban on Xie, saying she is being taken “hostage.”
“I’m concerned about the fact that the Shanghai police have Yu Miao’s wife Xie Fang hostage in an attempt to coerce Yu Miao, who is in the United States, to return to China,” Zhou wrote.
“The acclaimed Jifeng Bookstore was forced to close in 2018, and Yu and his family came to the United States,” he tweeted.
He later told RFA: “It is of course unacceptable that they have abducted his wife, who had nothing to do with Yu Miao’s activities, and are now demanding Yu Miao … go back to China.”
“Act of state terrorism”
U.S.-based human rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said Yu had likely done nothing to endanger national security.
“This incident tells us that the Chinese Communist Party’s monitoring of its nationals overseas is highly secretive, all-pervasive and very widespread,” Wu said. “They use monitoring and the spy network to implement long-arm controls over their people overseas.”
“This means that Chinese people daren’t even exercise their rights when they’re outside China,” he said. “It’s an act of state terrorism, and it’s very typical” of the regime.
A number of countries have recently ordered China to shut down unauthorized police stations operating within their boundaries after a report by Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders said one of their main tasks is to persuade overseas dissidents to go back to China.
“Hell on earth”
Meanwhile, Thai police have released on bail a UN-recognized political refugee whom they detained after he staged a lone protest against Chinese President Xi Jinping as he attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok.
Li Nanfei described his two-and-a-half months in detention as “hell on earth.”
“I was in a cell less than 100 meters square, with more than 100 people lying and standing,” he said. “At peak times, there could be up to 160 people, all sleeping in shifts.”
Li Nanfei, shown in an undated photo, has been stranded in Thailand for several years despite being a United Nations-registered refugee. Credit: Li Nanfei
“The bunks are only about 40-50 centimeters wide, and the cell bosses beat you up for being a bit too wide, or the police would instruct the prisoners to beat you, or they’d even beat you themselves,” Li said.
Li, who has been stranded in Thailand for several years, was arrested after holding up a placard on a Bangkok street that read: “His Majesty President Xi, put an end to dictatorship in China! Give the people back their freedom!”
Li fled China after being charged with “subversion of state power” in 2013 after he tried to set up a political party, a notion that is anathema to Beijing.
He has no travel documents, and hasn’t been offered resettlement in a third country.
“I can’t do anything because I don’t have a passport: I even have to ask a Thai person if I want to apply for a SIM card,” he said. “I have no bank account, and … I can’t work … or buy a property. I have to ask a Thai person just to rent somewhere.”
He said he has little choice but to stay where he is, trying to evade forcible repatriation to China if Thai police decide they want to comply with a request from Beijing.
“Relatively speaking, there’s still some fresh air to breathe,” he said. “I could try to get to Malaysia or the Philippines in a sailboat, where I might have a chance at freedom, but of course I could die on the way.”
He said his former fellow rights activist and good friend Zhang Haitao is currently serving a 19-year jail term at Xinjiang’s Shaya Prison for “incitement to subvert state power” and spying.
“My case was much more serious than his, as I was a suspected mastermind,” Li said, “so they’re not going to let up on me.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
The opening theme song for China’s state-run television extravaganza welcoming in the Year of the Rabbit has sparked online outrage after gaming fans posted video clips suggesting it had been plagiarized from a Japanese anime video game.
CCTV’s Spring Festival gala, a long-running fixture of Lunar New Year celebrations in China, opened with a star-studded cast singing a jaunty number titled “Flowers bloom in our homeland.”
Pretty soon, posts were popping up on social media both at home and overseas noting the similarity between the song, which was said to have been penned especially for the gala event, and the song titled “Peaceful * Champuru” that plays out over the closing credits of Japanese anime video game Princess Connect! Re:Dive.
“This is totally plagiarism, and totally not surprising!” read a comment by user @Wangxiang_guest under a story on the issue posted to the overseas-based Chinese-language site Wenxue City. “Plagiarism has been common practice since the Qing Dynasty.”
“The problem is that the plagiarized version isn’t as good as the original,” agreed @Underpants_Superman, while @shakuras2000’s reaction was somewhat more jaded: “Just get used to it. There are so many Chinese songs that have been copied from Japan.”
“So some daring thief has dared to plagiarize an anime song from the Great Kingdom of Japan!” quipped @Beijing_Rice_Bucket.
Users on the mainland China-based social media platform Weibo were slightly more circumspect, commenting under a post of mock outrage at the plagiarism “rumor-mongering.”
“It’s clear that they are very similar,” wrote @VegNo9_with_eggs, while @Diligent_Brother commented: “China has so many conservatoires, so what happened to all that homegrown talent?”
Others responded with laughing or crying emojis, while @Even_dregs_need_designing quipped: “Actually, the flowers are blooming in Japan!”
Meanwhile, @Keep_a_low_profile had a suggestion for China’s internet censors: “It’s not hard to handle — just block the original version,” the user wrote with a cackle emoji.
Japanese Twitter user @linsbar described the opening song’s melody as a “ripoff” of the anime tune, while Twitter user @Canadasheep0121 wondered where all the online supporters of the ruling Chinese Communist Party were.
“The Little Pinks seem extraordinarily quiet on this,” the user tweeted.
State-backed English-language tabloid the Global Times cited some of them describing the gala performance as being packed with “awesome creativity with a message that is too beautiful to be true.”
“A culturally influential modern nation should have its representative modern cultural products, one of which is the Spring Festival Gala that crystallizes the Chinese people’s spirit and creativity,” the paper said in an editorial on Monday.
Copyright? Not an issue.
U.S.-based current affairs commentator Wang Jian said he wasn’t surprised at the similarity between the two songs.
“China doesn’t pay much attention to copyright issues,” Wang said. “It’s entirely possible that this person just copied [the song].”
“They could just have said ‘we want to buy the rights [to use the song] — how much would that cost?’ Does CCTV have no money?” he said.
He said the gala should have been canceled out of respect for the large numbers of people currently dying of COVID-19 in China.
“Millions of families lost loved ones this year … do they really want to have a joyful party?”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
A veteran reporter known for covering rights abuses in Indonesia’s militarized and restive Papua region said a bomb exploded outside his residence on Monday, with a journalists group calling it an act of intimidation that threatened press freedom.
No one was injured in the blast near his home in the provincial capital, Jayapura, said Victor Mambor, editor of Papua’s leading news website, Jubi, and a contributor to BenarNews and other media.
Police said they were investigating the explosion and that no one had yet claimed responsibility.
“Yes, someone threw a bomb,” Papua Police spokesperson Ignatius Benny told BenarNews. “The motive and perpetrators are unknown.”
Mambor said he heard the sound of a motorcycle at about 4 a.m. and then an explosion about a minute later. “It was so loud that my house shook like there was an earthquake,” he told BenarNews.
“I also checked the source of the explosion and smelled sulfur coming from the side of the house.”
The explosion left a hole in the road, he said.
The incident was not the first to occur outside Mambor’s home. In April 2021, windows were smashed and paint sprayed on his car in the middle of the night.
Mambor is also an advocate for press freedom in Papua. In that role, he has criticized Jakarta’s restrictions on the media in Papua, as well as its other policies in his troubled home province.
Indonesian journalists’ organization AJI awarded Mambor its press freedom award in August 2022, saying that through Jubi, “Victor brings more voices from Papua, amid domination of information that is biased, one-sided and discriminatory.”
The Jayapura branch of AJI, which stands for Alliance of Independent Journalists, called the explosion outside Mambor’s house on Monday a “terrorist bombing.”
“AJI in Jayapura strongly condemns the terrorist bombing and considers this an act of intimidation that threatens press freedom in Papua,” it said in a statement.
“AJI Jayapura calls on all journalists in the land of Papua to continue to voice the truth despite obstacles. Justice should be upheld even though the sky is falling,” said AJI Chairman Lucky Ireeuw.
Amnesty International Indonesia urged the police to find those responsible.
“The police must thoroughly investigate this incident, because this is not the first time … meaning there was an omission that made the perpetrators feel free to do it again, to intimidate and threaten journalists,” Amnesty’s campaign manager in Indonesia, Nurina Savitri, told BenarNews.
The Papua region, located at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, has been the site of a decades-old separatist insurgency where both government security forces and rebels have been accused of committing atrocities against civilians.
Foreign journalists have been largely barred from the area, with the government insisting it could not guarantee their safety. Indonesian journalists allege that officials make their work difficult by refusing to provide information.
The armed elements of the independence movement have stepped up lethal attacks on Indonesian security forces, civilians and targets such as construction of a trans-Papua highway that would make the Papuan highlands more accessible.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, has accused Indonesian security forces of intimidation, arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings and mass forced displacement in Papua.
Last month, Indonesian activist group KontraS said 36 people were killed by security forces and separatist rebels in the Papua and West Papua provinces in 2022, an increase from 28 in 2021.
