BANGKOK– Thailand’s daily COVID-19 cases and deaths both set records again yesterday, as the country fights its worst surge in infections, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
Data from the Ministry of Public Health showed that, Thailand’s COVID-19 caseload rose by 18,912 over the last 24 hours to 697,287, and the death toll increased by 178 to 4,857.
Daily case tallies in the Southeast Asian country have continued to rise sharply in July, despite the imposition of tougher restrictions, like curfew and partial lockdown, in its most affected provinces.
The number of patients in critical condition and on ventilators also climbed to 4,691 and 1,032 respectively, which is increasing pressure on the medical system in hard-hit areas, like the capital, Bangkok.
Local media reported that, the soaring cases have prompted the authorities to consider extending the current restrictive measures for another two weeks.
With some 5.5 percent of people fully inoculated, Thailand’s vaccination rate is relatively low. However, the country has accelerated its vaccination progress recently, with a new record of single-day shots on Friday.
SUVA– Fiji reported 1,121 new COVID-19 cases for the last 24 hours, and six more deaths from Thursday to Friday, according to health officials, yesterday.
Permanent Secretary for Health, James Fong, said, 241 cases were from the Western side of Viti Levu, and 880 cases from four provinces on the central side of the main island.
With 21,707 active cases now, the country has recorded a total of 29,781 cases and 7,705 recoveries. There have been 238 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, and the seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is eight.
There are currently 294 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital, with 56 of them in severe condition and 11 in critical condition.
Fong said, a total of 6,289 individuals were screened and 655 swabbed at the stationary screening clinics in the last 24 hours.
A total of 270,052 samples have been tested since the outbreak started in Apr, 2021, with 312,913 tested, since testing began in Mar, 2020.
The country has imposed a curfew from 6:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. local time, to reduce the unnecessary movement of people.
YANGON– Myanmar expects to hold new general elections in the second half of 2023, Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, chair of the newly formed State Administration Council, said, in his televised message to the public today.
“The constitution states, according to subsection (b) of Section 421, if one cannot accomplish the duties within one year of the emergency period, it permits only two extensions of the prescribed duration for a term of six months for each extension. In the meantime, we have to do the things that should be done. Then, we will take six months, by Aug, 2023, to prepare for the election, according to the law,” Min Aung Hlaing said.
The state power has been held by the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing for six months, since a state of emergency was declared in Myanmar on Feb 1, this year.
Min Aung Hlaing also pledged to hold multi-party general elections without fail, stressing the need to create conditions to hold free and fair multi-party general elections.
The Union Election Commission, cancelled on Jul 27, the results of the previous multi-party general elections held on Nov 8 last year, as the elections were not held in line with the law and were not fair.
The National League for Democracy won a majority of seats in both houses of the Union Parliament in the previous general elections.
Min Aung Haling said, “We will hold briefings on findings of the previous general elections, to international delegates in the near future.”
He also pledged to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia)— Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs (Security Cluster) Hishammuddin Hussein is scheduled to lead the Malaysian delegation to the 54th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (54th AMM) and related meetings, from tomorrow (Aug 2) until Aug 7.
The Malaysian Foreign Ministry (Wisma Putra) said in a statement that all the meetings via video conference will be hosted by Brunei Darussalam, in its role as ASEAN Chair for 2021.
“At the 54th AMM, ASEAN Foreign Ministers will discuss the progress of ASEAN Community Building; ASEAN 2021 Priorities and Key Deliverables including the collective and COVID-19 socio-economic recovery strategy.
“Also will be discussed the implementation of ASEAN Political Security Blueprint 2025, regional and international issues as well as preparations for the 38th and the 39th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits, scheduled to be held back to back in October 2021,” said the statement.
Among the related meetings Hishammuddin is expected to participate during the 54th AMM are 22nd ASEAN Plus Three (+3) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting; Meeting of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Commission; 23rd ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) Council Meeting; 29th ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC).
The others are ASEAN – ROK (Republic of Korea) Ministerial Meeting; ASEAN – China Ministerial Meeting; ASEAN – Japan Ministerial Meeting; ASEAN – US Ministerial Meeting and ASEAN – Australia Ministerial Meeting.
The statement said Malaysia, as country coordinator for ASEAN-Australia Dialogue Relations for 2018-2021 will co-chair the ASEAN- Australia Ministerial Meeting, with Hishammuddin and his Australian counterpart Senator Marise Payne leading the discussion on issues of mutual concern.
“At the end of the meeting, Malaysia will be handing over the country coordinatorship for ASEAN – Australia dialogue relations to Lao PDR (Laos).
“Malaysia will also be taking over the country coordinator ship of ASEAN-Canada dialogue relations from Myanmar following the ASEAN-Canada Ministerial Meeting,” the statement added.
The statement said at the conclusion of the 54th AMM and Related Meetings, Foreign Ministers would adopt several outcome documents, including the 54th AMM Joint Communiqué, which will highlight the outcomes of discussion as well as strategic and important decisions made during the meetings.
Rep. Chris Smith, a 21-term Republican congressman from New Jersey and co-chair of the Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, is a long-time critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights record. He spoke to Tashi Wangchuk of RFA’s Tibetan Service Friday about increasingly repressive Chinese policies toward Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. He endorsed the determination made by the U.S. State Department in January that China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region constitute genocide, and said the term also applies to repressive policies in next-door Tibet. The situation in these long-troubled regions, along with the sharp decline in freedom in Hong Kong in the year since China imposed a harsh National Security Law on Hong Kong, make Beijing unfit to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, said Smith. He argued for pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reconsider the decision, and called for a boycott in the event the games go on in the Chinese capital. This interview has been edited for length.
2022 Winter Olympics
To march into Beijing, into an Olympic stadium, with big smiles, patting Xi Jinping on the back — you know the genocide is his genocide. And you know, he’s the one who said ‘show no mercy’ to the Muslim Uyghurs…and they haven’t. (We must) very aggressively say to the IOC: “You cannot host an Olympic Games in the same country that is also committing a horrific genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and Kazakhs and other minorities.’ It’s reminiscent of the 1936 Nazi Olympic Games, but in that case we didn’t know as much then…We now know what’s going on against the people in Xinjiang, and it is a genocide. It has been determined to be that by both Secretary (Mike) Pompeo and by Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state, and other countries…are now stepping up and saying it is indeed a genocide, and that is the complete elimination of the people in whole or in part. The five criteria described in the genocide convention, all of them are being realized horribly by the people of Xinjiang. If that doesn’t work, frankly, if the Olympic Committee remains resolute, we should boycott it.
Rep. Chris Smith (C) and Tiananmen protest veteran Fang Zheng (2nd L) are observed by sculptor Chen Weiming (L) at a ceremony on the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, at Liberty Sculpture Park in Yermo, California, June 4, 2021. Credit: AFP
‘Decades-long genocide’ in Tibet
Genocide against the Tibetans has been a long, decades-long genocide: The Han population transfer that has occurred, the use of forced abortion and forced sterilization to reduce the population — very similar to what they’re doing against the Uyghurs — the inability of people to practice their chosen faith as they would like. The fact that the Dalai Lama’s successor the Panchen Lama, has disappeared and the Chinese Communist government reserves unto itself the right to pick the next Dalai Lama. I mean that is absurd. So there’s been a long, very, very painful genocide against Tibetans. The Chinese Communist Party is directly responsible for several genocides of which Tibet is one of them.
A ‘rapidly deteriorating situation’ in Hong Kong
And again just look at Hong Kong. They broke their word on the basic law, they broke their word on the U.K.-Sino agreement, which is an international treaty. And now some of the best and the bravest and the brightest in Hong Kong are in prison, or they’ve had to leave the country, while others are waiting for that knock on the door of the Chinese secret police. So it’s a rapidly deteriorating situation.
Six months after Myanmar’s military staged a coup to remove the country’s democratically elected government, life in the Southeast Asian nation is worse by nearly every metric, according to analysts, who said the junta’s prospect for maintaining power in the long term appears unlikely.
On Feb. 1, the military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), alleging that the party’s landslide victory in the country’s November 2020 election was the result of extensive voter fraud.
The junta detained the NLD leadership on what are widely seen as politically motivated charges and has violently suppressed mass protests, arresting at least 5,442 people and killing 939, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).
Earlier this week, the junta’s Union Election Commission (UEC) announced that the 2020 election results had been annulled, claiming that more than 11.3 million ballots—representing nearly one-third of the country’s registered voters—had been discounted due to fraud and other irregularities orchestrated by the NLD. The junta has yet to produce evidence of its claims, and the NLD and several of the country’s other political parties have rejected the move as unlawful.
Aung Kyi Myunt, a member of the NLD’s central executive committee, told RFA that the military had been working to remove the party from power for months in the lead up to the coup and that the country’s political situation is now in shambles.
“They came in with weapons, destroying branch office signage, and in some places removed NLD flags or entered NLD offices and unlawfully confiscated documents, equipment, and computers as they wished,” he said.
“Some NLD officials were arrested and imprisoned under various charges, while others have been tortured or killed, or are now in hiding. Some elected [lawmakers] have taken shelter in ‘liberated areas’ [under the control of anti-junta militias] or moved to safer places.”
The remnants of the NLD responded to the coup by forming the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) in May and backing the formation of the People’s Defense Force (PDF) militia, which has proved to be a formidable adversary in protecting the public from junta forces throughout the country.
People queue as they wait to use ATMs in Yangon, April 7, 2021. AFP
Economy on the ropes
Myanmar’s economy has also suffered in the aftermath of the military takeover, with hundreds of thousands of jobs lost amid the widespread closure of factories and other businesses.
While some of the downturn can be attributed to the disastrous impact of the coronavirus, the Asian Development Bank estimates that Myanmar’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is currently shrinking by nearly 10 percent, compared to a growth of 3.3 percent in 2020, suggesting that the previous government had managed to steer the economy in the right direction after the pandemic reached the country in March last year.
A statement issued by the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association last month said that 52 factories have been shut down on either a temporary or permanent basis since the coup, as orders from international buyers fell from tens of thousands to thousands.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) said last week that labor market conditions in Myanmar have also worsened since the military took over. As many as 1.2 million jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2021, predominantly in the construction, tourism, and hospitality sectors.
A World Bank report released this week said that the twin impacts of the military takeover and coronavirus pandemic could double the poverty rate in Myanmar, and suggested the economy is headed for a recession. The Bank pointed to domestic protests, labor shortages, telecommunications shutdowns, and a failing health sector as having the greatest impact.
Dr. Soe Tun, a businessman in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon, said the coup had left Myanmar’s economy in a state of “turmoil.”
“Foreign investors are shutting down businesses and leaving the country, while local businesses are struggling hard to survive,” he said. “Everything is slowing down.”
Meanwhile, the kyat has depreciated significantly in the past six months, increasing from 1,330 to the U.S. dollar on the day of the coup to 1,630 on Friday.
The daughter of Zwee Htet Soe, a protester who died during a demonstration against the military coup, cries during her father’s funeral in Yangon, March 5, 2021. AFP
‘Worst’ ever rights situation
Watchdog groups say the coup has had a devastating impact on the human rights situation in Myanmar, citing widespread reports of torture, as well as the number of deaths and arrests documented by the AAPP.
Min Lwin Oo, a lawyer with the Asian Human Rights Commission, said the people of Myanmar have been living in a state of anxiety and fear for the past six months.
“Our children have been subjected to abuses of the rights of minors, women have been subjected to sexual abuse and harassment, men have been brutally beaten during arrests and cruelly tortured at interrogation centers,” he said.
“The people have been living in fear. They have no guarantees protecting their property. They cannot move about freely or even breathe freely. The situation has gone from bad to worse.”
The AAPP recently said that people between the ages of 18 and 35 accounted for the highest number of deaths attributed to the junta, and that 61 minors were among those killed.
A spokesman for the group told RFA that the last six months have been worse for human rights in Myanmar than during any other time in history.
“Many were killed during the protests on the streets and there were a lot of young people among those shot dead,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Some were arrested at home or killed because of false information provided to the military by informants. We have endured a succession of military dictators, but this present dictatorship is the worst.”
RFA has also documented a significant downturn in media freedom since February, with some 90 arrests of journalists. Following the coup, the junta shut down eight media outlets, including DVB News, Mizzima News Agency, Myitkyina Journal, Tachileik News Agency, Seven Days, Myanmar Now, Modern, and The 74 Media.
Volunteers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) pray in front of bodies of people who died from COVID-19 during their funeral at a cemetery in Mandalay, July 14, 2021. AFP
Ailing healthcare system
Efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 in Myanmar were dealt a serious blow when the military seized power on Feb. 1 and the country’s healthcare system is now at the brink of collapse due to a poorly managed third wave of the coronavirus.
The number of COVID-19 infections rose Friday to a total of 289,333 since Myanmar’s first recorded case in March last year. The official monthly infection rate has jumped from around two percent of those tested in April 2020 during the first wave to 23 percent earlier this month, and at least 8,552 have died.
The country’s public hospitals are operating at maximum capacity and had been turning away all but the most seriously ill, while others were forced to settle for treatment at home amid shortages of basic medical necessities, including oxygen supplies critical to mitigating hypoxia.
Tens of thousands of people, including many healthcare professionals, have left their jobs to join a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in opposition to junta rule. Many have faced arrest for voicing criticism of the regime.
More than 4,600 people have died from COVID-19 over the past two months, according to the junta’s Ministry of Health and Sports, although the actual number is believed to be substantially higher, based on reports by charity groups that provide free burial services.
A doctor in Mandalay, who declined to be named, said CDM doctors and health workers have had to carry out their work in secret as the junta continues to make arrests.
“There is absolutely no freedom at all. Right now, providing medical treatment is like smuggling,” he said. “We have never seen anything like this before in this country.”
Doctors estimate that between 80 and 100 doctors and health workers have been detained since February.
Police fire water cannons at protesters as they demonstrate against the military coup in the capital Naypyidaw, Feb. 9, 2021. AFP
Grasp on power tenuous
Aung Htoo, a Sweden-based Burmese lawyer, said that while the military has so far been able to use the threat of violence to maintain a grip on the nation, its inability to govern effectively suggests that a power struggle is likely to ensue.
“In order to lay the groundwork for the country’s long-term stability, an administrative machinery based on a strong and balanced constitution will be needed,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service, adding that the people no longer accept Myanmar’s 2008 charter, drafted under the then-ruling military regime.
“It is impossible to achieve stability under the 2008 Constitution, as the [current] junta has hoped for. Looking back at the past six-month period, I don’t think there is a possibility for peace and stability in the country even though the junta has now taken control in the urban areas.”
Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
