Tag: Asia Pacific

Vietnam’s micro-apartments are a godsend for the poor – and a deadly risk | Housing News

Hanoi, Vietnam – In the Vietnamese capital’s Thanh Xuan district, where labyrinthine alleys bustle with residential life and the energy of nearby universities, memories of last year’s deadly apartment fire linger.

Late on the night of September 12, 2023, a blaze ripped through an apartment building on Khuong Ha Street in Khuong Dinh ward, killing 56 people, including four children.

Police determined the fire started from a short circuit in the electrical wiring of a scooter parked on the first floor, before quickly spreading to the building’s upper floors – added by the building’s owner to create tiny subdivided apartments that could house triple as many tenants.

For years, micro-apartments, known as “chung cu mini”, have sprouted throughout Vietnam’s metropolises, cramming low-income families and college students into substandard, fire-prone housing.

“These apartments are like mushrooms, they are everywhere,” Lan Vo, a former resident of a micro-apartment in Thanh Xuan, told Al Jazeera, requesting to be referred to by a pseudonym to avoid harassment.

A fire at an apartment block on Khuong Ha Street last year killed 56 people, including four children [Coby Hobbs/Al Jazeera]

In an interview with state media last year, Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, attributed the boom in micro-apartments since the 2010s to a shortage of homes for low-income people.

September’s disaster and other fires at micro-apartment blocks have forced Vietnam’s authorities to confront the dangers of lax building and fire regulations and the inadequacies of the country’s social housing infrastructure.

But even as the nation mourns those killed and government inspections sweep through the country, municipalities are finding themselves hamstrung when it comes to outlawing the structures due to the rare affordability they offer low-income urban dwellers.

Blocks of micro-apartments are usually designed in the style of a long, narrow tube. Built on small plots in the narrow alleys of heavily populated districts, the residencies are often located within close proximity of universities and house students and low-income families.

The Ho Chi Minh City Construction Department estimated that the financial capital had more than 60,000 micro-apartment buildings, made up of about 600,000 apartments, as of mid-2022.

Chau, the real estate association chairman, said in his interview with state media that the apartments house approximately 1.8 million people and about 40 percent of the workforce in Ho Chi Minh City alone.

The city’s police department has reported that some 42,200 micro-apartments are currently on the market for rent.

While there is no official data for Hanoi, at least 2000 micro-apartment buildings are connected to the city’s power grid, according to the national utility, Vietnam Electricity.

Hanoi
There are dozens of micro-apartments jammed into narrow alleyways in Hanoi’s Khuong Dinh ward [Coby Hobss/Al Jazeera]

On a recent visit to Khuong Dinh ward, the site of September’s fire, Al Jazeera observed dozens of the apartments jammed into narrow alleyways.

Other clusters of apartments can be found in districts situated near universities, such as Hoang Mai, Cau Giay, Bac Tu Liem, and Nam Tu Liem.

“[Tenants] are mostly young workers and many students living together,” said Vo, the former micro-apartment resident.

“Due to high rent, students often live together in groups of three to five people to share rent and utilities.”

The selling price for a micro-apartment can be as little as 600 million Vietnamese dongs ($24,615), making the accommodation the cheapest form of property available in most Vietnamese cities.

Even so, in Vietnam, where the minimum wage salary barely reaches $200 a month, tenants – especially college students – can still find themselves struggling to make rent.

While Vo was relatively content with her dwellings, she witnessed others who endured far worse conditions than she did.

“The building I lived in had around eight to 10 rooms, but the building next to mine had up to 30 rooms,” Vo said.

“Greedy landlords try to stuff as many people as they can to gain more rent, it looks like a can of sardines if you think about it,” she added.

For residents, the desire to cram as many tenants as possible into the buildings threatens not only their comfort, but their safety as well.

The narrow and congested alleys that host the buildings in many cases limit accessibility for fire engines. Some apartments lack emergency exits and other fire prevention facilities.

In the case of September’s fire at Khuong Ha Street, fire engines and first responders reportedly had difficulty reaching the apartment due to the narrowness of the ward’s alleys.

Vo said tenants in her ward were occasionally gathered for “fire safety practice”, but the drills – mostly consisting of fire-prevention tips, such as not leaving stoves on – were overshadowed by the lack of emergency escape ladders on the buildings.

Thuy Hai, a student at Hanoi University who lives in a micro-apartment, said there are no monthly fire drills in her ward in Thanh Xuan.

“Instead, they [the landlord] just left a fire extinguisher at my front door,” she told Al Jazeera. “They didn’t even teach me how to use it.”

“Tiger cages”, metal bars around windows and balconies, designed to prevent burglaries and falls, have also been highlighted as a safety hazard.

So-called ‘tiger cages’ have been highlighted as one of many safety hazards for residents of Vietnam’s micro-apartments [Coby Hobbs/Al Jazeera]

In September alone, Hanoi experienced five fires of varying magnitude, according to a report by state media.

Colonel Duong Duc Hai, the deputy director of the Hanoi Police Department, told the local outlet that electrical short circuits were the root cause of 96 percent of these fires.

Tenants’ scooters are generally stored on the bottom floor of apartment buildings, posing potential safety hazards, including blocked exits and electrical malfunctions.

A witness to the fire in Thanh Xuan in September told Al Jazeera that the building’s owner, Nghiem Quang Minh, had hired an elderly security guard to manage tenants’ scooters on the bottom floor, but he was often overwhelmed by the number of vehicles.

The witness said the security guard was paid according to the number of scooters he was able to park, incentivising him to take in as many as possible.

Property owners have also been found to have built extra floors and rooms, breaking contract agreements and regulations.

Minh, who is now being prosecuted for alleged fire code violations, built at least eight other micro-apartment buildings in several districts of Hanoi, according to law enforcement officials.

None of these apartments met the fire safety standards and all were found to have unauthorised building extensions, state media reported.

Vietnam recently amended the law to cover micro-apartments [Coby Hobbs/Al Jazeera]

Vietnamese law for years did not define micro-apartments or include them under a specific legal framework. That changed in November when the National Assembly amended the law to grant them legal status.

When the amendments come into effect on January 1, 2025, property developers will still be permitted to construct micro-apartments on residential land on which they hold land use rights.

The amendments stipulate conditions for “individual” developers building and owning the buildings.

Under the regulations, individual investors will face bigger hurdles to develop micro-apartments compared with established real estate businesses, including being required to have a minimum amount of investment capital.

Before the legal changes, lawmakers debated if stricter regulations on micro-apartments would be unenforceable or if they should even be legal.

Trinh Xuan An, a delegate of the National Assembly, told local media that the government “should not support the construction of mini apartment buildings but, instead, ought to back the development of social housing projects for low-income earners”.

Other lawmakers emphasised that all new regulations would allow renters to safely access a popular form of accommodation.

A recurring factor in the debate is affordability.

In Hanoi, a fast-growing population has turned the city into one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world.

For many budget-conscious renters, the lack of suburban housing options makes micro-apartments the natural choice.

Despite their risks, the cramped units have proven popular with students and low-income, blue-collar workers.

Ex-tenant Vo said the apartments were still a better option than social housing for people like her and that stricter regulation would be a better option than a ban.

“Tenants should also be able to send direct complaints about serious problems and not have to wait decades for the government to respond, especially when it comes down to their own safety,” she said.

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Slapped: Speaking Up In Thailand | Al Jazeera

101 East investigates if defamation laws are being used to strangle scrutiny in Thailand amid growing calls for reform.

When tens of millions of baht disappeared from funds supposed to help lift Thai farmers out of poverty, Chutima Sidasathian began investigating.

The acclaimed journalist and human rights defender soon uncovered a banking scandal that has devastated her local community.

But a public figure implicated in the alleged fraud has filed criminal defamation complaints against her and now she’s facing up to 18 years in prison.

She’s just one of tens of thousands who have been slapped with these charges in the past decade.

101 East investigates how lawsuits are allegedly being used to intimidate whistleblowers and conceal corruption in Thailand.

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‘We’re a single village’: India seals Myanmar border, dividing families | Politics

Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India – For 61-year-old Vanlalchaka, the past few weeks have been filled with anxiety.

In the northeastern Indian border village of Zokhawthar, perched on a mountainside amid green hills, Vanlalchaka’s farm has been a safe haven for refugees fleeing the civil war in neighbouring Myanmar since 2021. Five refugees live there currently and Vanlalchaka has been leading efforts in the village, which sits on the banks of the Tiau River, to help others coming from across the border.

Like his ancestors, he said, he has never acknowledged the political borders that divide his ethnic tribe – known as the Chin in Myanmar, Mizo in India’s Mizoram state and Kuki in the Indian state of Manipur.

Vanlalchaka’s wife, BM Thangi, is from Myanmar’s Chin state. Vanlalchaka goes by a single name as is the custom in his community.

“The people of Zokhawthar and Khawmawi [the adjacent border village in Chin state] operate as a single village,” said Vanlalchaka, sitting with Thangi, 59. “When someone dies, we join the funeral process; when someone falls ill, we cross the border to visit patients and stay overnight if needed.”

That might not be possible any more.

As Mizoram prepares to vote on April 19 in the first of seven phases of India’s national election, its border communities are grappling with a deep rupture in their way of life.

For centuries, several Indigenous communities in India’s northeastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh have shared the same ethnicity and lived on both sides of the present 1,600km (1,000-mile) international border between India and Myanmar. Their coexistence as one community, in effect, continued even after India and Myanmar gained independence because of a largely porous border.

In 2018, the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi went one step further in its outreach to the country’s northeast and to the then-democratic government of Myanmar: it declared a free movement regime with Myanmar that allowed people on either side of the border to cross 16km (10 miles) into the other country without a visa. People needed a border permit, valid for a year, to stay on the other side of the border for about two weeks at a time.

But this February, weeks before the multi-phase elections begin, the Indian government scrapped the pact “to ensure the internal security” and “to maintain the demographic structure” of the regions bordering Myanmar, said Amit Shah, India’s home minister.

That decision came amid increasing clashes in Myanmar between a range of rebel groups and the military that grabbed power in 2021 through a coup. Those clashes have in turn sparked a refugee crisis, turning towns like Zokhawthar into safe havens for fleeing people. But many in India’s northeast see a deeper political reason behind the decision to seal the border: blaming migrants and refugees is a convenient escape from addressing deeper internal security failures that have led to the eruption of violence in the region in recent months.

For Vanlalchaka and others in his village, though, the politics is secondary — and the end of the free movement regime feels personal.

“The central government’s [decision of] border fencing and the end of the FMR will separate our families,” said Vanlalchaka. “It is just unfortunate,” his wife Thangi added.

Refugees from Myanmar use the Kenbo-125 motorbikes in Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India [Burhan Bhat/Al Jazeera]

‘For what?’

From trade to farming, the lives of thousands of people have long been dependent on open borders: Zokhawthar’s favourite betel nuts and handmade cigarettes are bought from Myanmar; the beer cans have the country’s labels; and getting around Mizoram’s rugged border terrain is impractical without a Kenbo-125 motorbike — which also comes from Myanmar.

“We mainly rely on border trade. If the import of essential commodities for our livelihood stops, most of the residents of this village will have to migrate because they will be jobless,” said Vanlalchaka.

Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Mizoram has hosted thousands of refugees fleeing violence, despite opposition from the federal Indian government, which in September asked the state government to collect biometric details of Myanmar refugees. The state government refused.

Nearly 80,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar live in India, 53,000 of them since the 2021 coup. Mizoram alone hosts half of them — 40,000 refugees — according to 2023 data from the UNHCR, settled in makeshift camps in villages like Zokhawthar.

“Like other Mizoram residents, we have many close relatives in Myanmar,” said Thangi. Last month, she was joined by her elder sister, Marovi, and her family, who flew from Kalemyo, in Myanmar, amid worsening fighting. “Their house was bombed this morning,” she added, “we are fortunate it didn’t happen while they were at home.”

Their eldest sister, 73-year-old Lalchami ran away with her two children when the raging battles neared their home in 2022. Now, Lalchami and her children live on the farmland of Vanlalchaka, in a makeshift shanty made of wood and tin sheets. Lalchami’s 42-year-old daughter, Malsawmsangi, suffers from breast cancer.

“My daughter’s cancer has now spread to her lungs. If we remain in Myanmar, it will be very difficult for her to get treatment,” Lalchami told Al Jazeera. Their nearest medical facility is in Kalemyo, now a battleground, while medical facilities in Yangon and Mandalay remain inaccessible to them.

“What if we return and the fighting starts again? We are fortunate that she can receive medical treatment in Mizoram,” she said. “In our situation, the attempt to separate us [by the Indian government] is just sad and puts us in a vulnerable position.”

Refugees from Myanmar inside the refugee camp in Zokhawthar, Mizoram [Burhan Bhat/Al Jazeera]

The pushback

The Indian government’s move has led to pushback — not just from border communities but also from political leaders in two states, including allies of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Mizoram’s Home Minister K Sapdanga has described the India-Myanmar border as a colonial legacy driving ethnic divisions. In February, he said people “have been dreaming of reunification and cannot accept the India-Myanmar border imposed upon us”. Earlier, Sapdanga’s party, the Zoram People’s Movement, had made it clear that they would not join hands with either the BJP or the opposition Congress-led alliance to “maintain its identity as an independent regional party free from [New] Delhi’s control”.

In Nagaland, a party allied to the BJP moved a resolution in the state assembly on March 1 arguing New Delhi’s decision to scrap free movement would disrupt age-old ties.

Across the border, the National Unity Government (NUG) — Myanmar’s government-in-exile comprising lawmakers removed in the 2021 coup — too has concerns about India’s policy shift.

“Burma is at war and it is a resistance war; the country is not in a normal situation,” a senior official of the NUG’s foreign ministry said in a phone interview, speaking under condition of anonymity from an undisclosed location. “And we rely heavily on India in seeking humanitarian assistance because our people are running for their lives from the junta.”

The official said the NUG had articulated its concerns to India. “New Delhi needs to acknowledge that the FMR is a humanitarian requirement,” the official said. “A country of India’s stature should not impose that kind of humanitarian crisis on our people.”

Fencing the border and ending free movement is also risky in the long run for New Delhi, which for decades has had a tense relationship with India’s northeast — a region that saw major secessionist movements, some of which are still alive.

“Successive governments have realised that local ethnic communities hold the open border policy dear to their social and cultural existence,” said Angshuman Choudhary, an associate fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR), with a focus on Myanmar and northeast India. “If you tinker with that, you will create new cycles of discontent and violence. There are so many ethno-political differences, and border fencing is another front to oppose the central government.”

A view of the Tiau River from a refugee’s home in Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India [Burhan Bhat/Al Jazeera]

Border insecurity

To be sure, India does have its own genuine security concerns.

The Tatmadaw, the Myanmar army, has suffered significant blows in recent months, with the rebel Arakan Army running over many military outposts and making territorial gains in western Myanmar.

The Indian government’s move to fence the border is in many ways “a reaction towards a rapidly escalating and worsening war in Myanmar that poses major border security concerns for India and Bangladesh”, said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson International Center, in Washington, DC.

“India wants to do everything it can to reduce the likelihood of spillover effects of the conflict in Myanmar into India,” he said.

But on the ground, managing the border is a complex affair.

The bridge over the Tiau River, connecting Zokhawthar and Khawmawi, was being controlled by the Indian Army’s Assam Rifles, along with the Mizoram Police, and rebels associated with Myanmar’s Chin National Defense Force (CNDF), when Al Jazeera visited in March.

The region just across in Myanmar “is in the people’s hands”, said Rodina, secretary of the CNDF, who — like Vanlalchaka — goes by a single name.

While the CNDF is trying to restart hospitals in the territory it controls, “we cannot admit serious patients due to lack of medical facilities”, Rodina said. “Many patients will still need to go to Mizoram for medical treatment.” It’s unclear how far that might be possible if the border is fenced.

Meanwhile, locals on the Indian side say the Assam Rifles has amped up the presence of armed personnel since the February announcement of the fencing plan.

And New Delhi finds itself in “unchartered territory”, said Choudhary of the CPR, because in the border state of Chin, the CNDF is not the only major rebel force. And the different rebel groups do not always agree. For the moment, he said, India appears to lack a coherent policy on how to deal with these multiple groups.

A makeshift grocery store run by a refugee in Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India [Burhan Bhat/Al Jazeera]

The Manipur piece of the puzzle

However, some analysts also question whether India’s new policy position is driven in part by another crisis — entirely within India — in the state of Manipur, to Mizoram’s north.

More than 200 people have been killed and thousands more displaced in ethnic violence that broke out in May 2023 and has raged ever since between the Meitei majority population of Manipur and the Kuki and Naga minorities. The state’s BJP government has been accused of fanning tensions to consolidate its Meitei support base — a charge the party has denied.

The BJP in turn has denied those charges and blamed “illegal migrants” from Myanmar for the violence. But critics say that position is aimed at drawing attention away from the government’s internal security failures.

“It is easy for them to point at the borders and say immigrants are responsible – it is just pure distraction,” said the CPR’s Choudhary.

In the past, Choudhary pointed out, Indian governments — including Modi’s — have refrained from moving ahead with border fencing even after deadly ambushes on Indian security personnel by armed fighters who crossed over from Myanmar.

If it goes ahead with fencing this time around, the Modi government risks further alienating already remote communities and “sparking a cycle of discontent, and of violence”, said Choudhary.

“It is all just going to be a mess eventually. And for what?”



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Myanmar troops retreat to Thai border bridge after days of fighting | Conflict News

Deteriorating situation in Myawaddy adds to pressure on generals who seized power in a 2021 coup.

Some 200 Myanmar soldiers have withdrawn to the so-called Friendship Bridge connecting the border town of Myawaddy to Thailand amid a relentless assault by anticoup forces.

The retreat is another indication of the rising pressure facing the generals who seized power in a coup in February 2021, leading to an uprising against their rule.

In a statement on Facebook, the Karen National Union (KNU), the ethnic armed group that has been leading the attack on Myawaddy, said its forces had defeated the 275 battalion, the remaining major military force in the town, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Saw Taw Nee, a KNU spokesperson, told the Reuters news agency, that about 200 soldiers had gathered at the bridge, while the Myanmar news outlet Khit Thit reported that Thai authorities were in talks with the soldiers to decide whether to grant them refuge.

Myawaddy is a strategically important town just across the border from Thailand’s Mae Sot. Television footage from the Thai side of the border showed plumes of black smoke rising into the air.

The generals have been under growing pressure since an October offensive by a powerful alliance of ethnic armed groups reinvigorated the opposition and led to large clashes across the country. The military has lost control of hundreds of military posts and several towns in border areas.

Over the weekend, about 600 Myanmar soldiers and their families fled Myawaddy amid reports the military had requested Thailand to allow them into the country to fly to safety.

At least 2,000 people have been displaced within Myanmar by the latest surge in fighting, according to the civil society group Karen Peace Support Network.

State-run media have not reported on the escalating conflict on the eastern border.

The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar published photos of new recruits starting their training after the military in February activated a long-dormant conscription law.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the military of forcibly recruiting more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslim men and boys from across Rakhine State since February.

“It’s appalling to see Myanmar’s military, which has committed atrocities against the Rohingya for decades while denying them citizenship, now forcing them to fight on its behalf,” Shayna Bauchner, the Asia researcher at HRW said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The junta should immediately end this forced recruitment and permit Rohingya unlawfully conscripted to return home.”

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Press freedom group says representative denied entry to Hong Kong | Freedom of the Press News

Reporters Without Borders says advocacy officer detained for six hours before being deported.

A representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was denied entry to Hong Kong after being detained for six hours, searched and questioned, the press freedom organisation has said.

Aleksandra Bielakowska, an advocacy officer based in Taiwan, was refused entry and deported on Wednesday after travelling to the city to observe the trial of media tycoon Jimmy Lai, RSF said in a statement.

Rebecca Vincent, RSF’s director of campaigns, said the group was “appalled” at the treatment of their colleague.

“We have never experienced such blatant efforts by authorities to evade scrutiny of court proceedings in any country, which further highlights the ludicrous nature of the case against Jimmy Lai, and the dire erosion of press freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong,” Vincent said.

“We demand an immediate explanation from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and a guarantee that our representatives can return to the territory safely to monitor the remainder of Lai’s trial, which cannot take place in darkness. The world must know what is happening in Hong Kong, which has implications for global press freedom.”

Hong Kong’s immigration department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lai, the founder of the shuttered Apple Daily pro-democracy tabloid, has been on trial since February on charges brought under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

The 76-year-old publisher’s prosecution has been widely condemned by rights groups as a mark of the city’s declining rights and freedoms under Beijing’s tightening control of the former British colony.

Hong Kong last month passed more national security legislation targeting vaguely-defined offences of treason, insurrection, espionage, sabotage and external interference, in a move widely expected to further narrow the space for dissent.

Hong Kong, once known for having one of the freest media landscapes in Asia, has severely curtailed the work of journalists in recent years.

Besides Apple Daily, pro-democracy outlets Stand News and Citizens’ Radio were forced to shut down amid the national security crackdown.

Radio Free Asia, which is part-funded by the US government, last month announced the closure of its Hong Kong office, citing concerns for the safety of its staff.

In RSF’s 2023 press freedom index, Hong Kong ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories, down from 73 in 2019.

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South Korea’s Yoon left humbled by opposition election landslide | Elections News

President Yoon Suk-yeol promises changes, top aides quit, after opposition parties sweep National Assembly elections.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has promised changes to his conservative administration after opposition parties romped to victory in Wednesday’s elections for the National Assembly.

With 99 percent of the votes counted, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and its satellite party appear to have won a combined 175 seats in the 300-seat parliament. The Rebuilding Korea party, considered allied with the DP, was expected to take about 12 seats, projections showed.

Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP) and its satellite party were expected to have won 109 seats.

Turnout was 67 percent, the highest ever recorded for a parliamentary election. The National Elections Commission is expected to confirm the final results later on Thursday.

“When voters chose me, it was your judgement against the Yoon Suk-yeol administration and you are giving the Democratic Party the duty to take responsibility for the livelihood of the people and create a better society,” DP leader Lee Jae-myung said.

Lee defeated a conservative candidate considered a major Yoon ally to win his seat in the city of Incheon to the west of the capital, Seoul.

Wednesday’s election was widely seen as a mid-term confidence vote on Yoon, a former top prosecutor who narrowly beat Lee to take office in 2022 for a single five-year term.

Speaking after the scale of his party’s loss became clear, Yoon promised reform.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and other senior aides all offered their resignations. The PPP leader Han Dong-hoon also quit.

Yoon has suffered low approval ratings for months amid a failure to deliver on his policy agenda and voter upset over rising prices and a series of corruption scandals.

The election setback is likely to further tie his hands domestically.

“Given his likely lame duck status, the temptation for Yoon will be to focus on foreign policy where he will still have statutory power,” said Mason Richey, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

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Biden ‘considering’ Australian request to drop case against Assange | Espionage News

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says US president’s comments encouraging.

United States President Joe Biden has said he is “considering” a request by Australia to end the decade-long push to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over the release of troves of classified documents.

Australia’s parliament in February passed a motion calling for the release of Assange with the backing of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Assange, an Australian citizen, has been held in the United Kingdom since 2019 as he fights extradition to the US to face espionage charges.

Before he was remanded at Belmarsh Prison in London, Assange spent seven years holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced a since-abandoned sexual assault investigation.

Asked about Australia’s request on Wednesday, Biden said, “We’re considering it.”

Biden, who made the comment in Washington, DC, while meeting with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, did not elaborate.

Albanese said Biden’s remarks were encouraging and the issue “needs to be brought to a conclusion”.

“Mr. Assange has already paid a significant price and enough is enough. There’s nothing to be gained by Mr. Assange’s continued incarceration in my very strong view and I’ve put that as the view of the Australian government,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Assange’s wife Stella in a social media post called on Biden to “do the right thing” and drop the charges.

Assange, 52, has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over his role in the 2010 leaking of classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If convicted, he faces up to 175 years in prison.

Assange’s prosecution has been widely denounced by press freedom and human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.

The High Court in London last month delayed a decision on Assange’s extradition pending assurances by US authorities that he would not face the death penalty.

The court is expected to make a final decision on Assange’s appeal on May 20 after providing the US three weeks to make further submissions in the case.

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Biden, Japan leader Kishida announce stronger defence ties in state visit | South China Sea News

United States President Joe Biden has welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to the White House, with an upgrade in defence ties topping the agenda.

The meeting is only the fifth official state visit of Biden’s presidency, with the lavish events typically reserved for only the most formidable of US allies.

Moreover, the visits underscore an administration’s strategic priorities, with three of the four previous state dinners – South Korea, India and Australia – emphasising the Indo-Pacific region to counter what US officials describe as China’s increased military and economic assertiveness.

Beijing also loomed large on Wednesday, in a visit that began with Biden welcoming Kishida on the South Lawn of the White House. Biden hailed the “unbreakable” partnership between Japan and the US as “a cornerstone of peace, security, prosperity, in the Indo-Pacific and around the world”.

Kishida referenced the iconic cherry blossom trees that typically bloom in Washington, DC in spring, and were first gifted to the US by Japan in 1912.

“I am confident that the cherry blossom-like bond of the Japan-US alliance will continue to grow even thicker and stronger in the Indo-Pacific and in all corners of the world,” Kishida said.

The two men went on to discuss as many as 70 cooperation agreements in defence, space and technology during a meeting in the oval office, according to officials who previewed the event.

At a joint press conference, Biden announced what he described as the most significant upgrade in military ties since the alliance between the two countries began.

He said the countries would modernise their military command and control structures in Japan to increase interoperability and planning. He also said that Japan, Australia and the US will create a network of air missiles and defence architecture, in the latest move to increase coordination of allies in the region.

The US has about 38,000 troops stationed in Japan, with another 11,000 on US vessels in Japanese waters.

The move is the latest by the US to increase cooperation with key allies in the region.

Beyond strengthening the so-called Quad strategic grouping, which includes the US, India, South Korea and Australia, the Biden administration has also created the so-called AUKUS security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, which is helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

The leaders of the US, Japan and the Philippines – another key US ally in the region – are also set to hold a first-of-its-kind trilateral meeting on Thursday.

For its part, Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of “Cold War thinking” that has ratcheted up tensions. Nevertheless, both Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have shown a willingness to engage diplomatically in recent times, with the two leaders holding a call earlier this month, their first direct communication since November.

The White House also announced on Wednesday a plan for Japan to join future US space missions, with Biden promising that a Japanese astronaut “will become the first non-American ever to land on the Moon”.

The two countries also announced a joint partnership to accelerate the development and commercialisation of nuclear fusion, an extremely high-yield, low waste form of energy production that scientists have been trying to harness for decades.

Speaking at the news conference, Kishida said that he and Biden had also discussed North Korea, which has continued to test more powerful missiles in recent years, as well as security in the Taiwan Strait, the waterway off of the self-governing island that China claims as its own.

He drew a direct link between Russia’s war in Ukraine and concerns in the Indo Pacific region.

“Unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion is absolutely unacceptable, wherever it may be,” Kishida said.

“Regarding Russia’s aggression of Ukraine … Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” Kishida said.

When asked about a planned $15bn acquisition of the US steelmaker US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, which both Biden and former President Donald Trump have criticised, Kishida said he hoped to cement a “win-win relationship”.

In the evening, Biden was scheduled to host Kishida at an opulent state dinner, with the State Floor of the White House transformed into a “vibrant spring garden;” First Lady Jill Biden is responsible for the event’s planning.

The meal served by White House chefs will include house-cured salmon, aged rib eye with wasabi sauce, and salted caramel pistachio cake with cherry ice cream.

After dinner, singer-songwriter Paul Simon will perform. Kishida is the first Japanese leader to be invited for an official state visit since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2015.

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South Koreans vote in election seen as test of President Yoon Suk-yeol | Elections News

South Korean voters could punish the ruling conservative party at the ballot box amid discontent over Yoon’s leadership.

Voting is under way in South Korea in parliamentary elections seen as a referendum on President Yoon Suk-yeol amid frustration about the cost of living and corruption.

Polls opened at 6am (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday and will remain open until 6pm (09:00 GMT). The country’s 44 million voters are choosing who will sit in the 300-seat National Assembly, with 254 members elected through direct votes in local districts and the other 46 allotted according to party support.

At a polling station in Seoul’s Gwangjin District, voters queued to have their identity documents checked and receive their ballot papers before heading into the polling booths to vote.

Opinion polls are mixed and election observers say candidates in about 50 to 55 local districts are in neck-and-neck races, making them too close to call.

“President Yoon has said a priority would be given to stabilising prices and livelihoods, but they weren’t stabilised, so I think that will be a big negative for the Yoon government during the election,” Kim Daye, a 32-year-old Seoul resident, told the Associated Press news agency.

Yoon, who narrowly beat the opposition Democratic Party (DP)’s Lee Jae-myung to the presidency in 2022, has struggled to push through his conservative policy agenda and is under pressure over a weeks-long doctors’ strike that has forced operations to be cancelled.

He is unpopular as a result of the “lack of real progress on domestic political and economic issues”, Andrew Yeo, a politics professor at the Catholic University of America, told the AFP news agency. “Prices and inflation remain high, housing is expensive, and political polarisation remains high.”

Corruption, disaffection

The DP had a majority in the outgoing assembly and has criticised Yoon and his conservative People Power Party (PPP) for mismanaging the economy and failing to rein in inflation.

A village schoolmaster and his family voting in Nonsan in South Korea [Yonhap/via Reuters]

PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, meanwhile, has said a big win by the DP, whose leader Lee Jae-myung is facing corruption charges, would create a crisis for the country.

Rebuilding Korea, a liberal splinter party led by former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, has emerged as a dark horse and is projected to win at least a dozen seats despite offering few substantive policies of its own.

“I am going to make President Yoon first a lame duck, then a dead duck,” Cho told the AFP earlier this month.

Cho is himself facing jail time for corruption charges that he denies.

The DP’s Lee is also on trial for fraud, while Yoon has been embroiled in a scandal over his wife’s decision to accept a designer Dior bag as a gift and the appointment of a former defence minister as South Korea’s ambassador to Australia even while he was under investigation for corruption.

Demographics could help Yoon, however, with voters aged 60 and older – seen as more conservative – now outnumbering those in their 20s and 30s.

Many younger voters are less likely to vote, with many saying they are put off by a political class dominated by older men who ignore their concerns.

They are also struggling economically, with cut-throat competition in education, fewer job opportunities and sky-high housing costs.

Yoon has three more years to serve of his single term in office. The National Assembly will serve a four-year term.

Chung Jin-young, a former dean of the Graduate School of Pan-Pacific International Studies at Kyung Hee University, predicts the opposition parties could win a combined 150-180 seats.

“That would cause a political deadlock for the Republic of Korea for the next three years, as both the ruling and opposition parties can’t pursue things unilaterally and won’t likely make terms with each other,” Chung said.

Exit polls will become available from about 6.30pm (09:30 GMT).

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From unfair trade to TikTok: US Treasury Secretary Yellen’s China trip | International Trade

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her team are leaving China and returning to the United States after trying to tackle the major questions of the day between the countries.

Here’s a look at what she tried to accomplish, what was achieved and where things stand for the world’s two largest economies:

Unfair trade practices 

Yellen said she wanted to go into the US-China talks to address a major complaint of the administration of US President Joe Biden – that Beijing’s economic model and trade practices put US companies and workers at an unfair competitive disadvantage by producing highly subsidised solar products, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries at a loss, dominating the global market.

Chinese government subsidies and other policy support have encouraged solar panel and electric vehicle (EV) makers in China to invest in factories, building far more production capacity than the domestic market can absorb.

She calls this “overcapacity”.

Throughout the week of meetings, she talked about the risks that come from one nation maintaining nearly all production capacity in these industries, the threat it poses to other nations’ industries and how a massive rapid increase in exports from one country can have big impacts on the global economy.

Ultimately, the two sides agreed to hold “intensive exchanges” on more balanced economic growth, according to a US statement issued after Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held extended meetings over two days in the southern city of Guangzhou.

It was not immediately clear when and where these exchanges would take place.

“It’s not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month but I think they have heard that this is an important issue to us,” she said.

Money laundering and related crimes 

After several rounds of meetings, the US Treasury and the Chinese Central Bank agreed to work together to stop money laundering in their respective financial systems.

Nearly all the precursor chemicals needed to make the deadly substance fentanyl are coming from China into the US.

The US says exchanging information on money laundering related to fentanyl trafficking may help disrupt the flow of the precursor chemicals into Mexico and the US.

“Treasury is committed to using all of our tools, including international cooperation, to counter this threat,” Yellen said in a speech announcing the formation of the group.

The new cooperative between the US and China will be part of the two nations’ economic working groups, which were launched last September, and the first exchange will be held in the coming weeks.

TikTok

Efforts in the US to ban the social media app TikTok, owned by the Chinese parent company ByteDance, were raised initially by the Chinese during US-China talks, a senior Treasury official told the Associated Press news agency. The firm has in the past promoted a data security restructuring plan called “Project Texas”, which it says sufficiently guards against national security concerns.

However, US lawmakers have moved forward with efforts to either ban the app or force the Chinese firm to divest its interest in the company, which the White House has supported. In China this week, it was evident there was little movement on the issue.

Yellen said at a news conference Monday that she supported the administration’s efforts to address national security issues that relate to sensitive personal data.

“This is a legitimate concern,” she said.

“Many US social apps are not allowed to operate in China,” Yellen said. “We would like to find a way forward.”

Financial stability

On the second day of Yellen’s trip to China, the US and China announced an agreement to work closely on issues related to financial stability, in that US and Chinese financial regulators agreed to hold a series of exercises simulating a failure of a large bank in either of the two countries.

The aim is to determine how to coordinate if a bank failure occurs, with the intent of preventing catastrophic stress on the global financial system.

Yellen said several exercises have already happened.

“I’m pleased that we will hold upcoming exchanges on operational resilience in the financial sector and on financial stability implications from the insurance sector’s exposure to climate risks.

“Just like military leaders need a hotline in a crisis,” Yellen said.

“American and Chinese financial regulators must be able to communicate to prevent financial stresses from turning into crises with tremendous ramifications for our citizens and the international community.”

What she ate

Yellen is something of a foodie celebrity in China ever since she ate mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects in Beijing last July.

This trip was no different.

High-ranking Chinese officials brought up her celebrity ahead of important meetings – Premier Li Qiang noted in his opening remarks that Yellen’s visit has “indeed drawn a lot of attention in society”, with media covering her trip and her dining habits.

And social media was abuzz, following her latest movements around Guangzhou and Beijing.

This time in Beijing, Yellen ate at Lao Chuan Ban, a popular Sichuan restaurant. She also had lunch with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong at the Beijing International Hotel.

On Monday evening, her last night in China, Yellen visited Jing-A Brewing Co in Beijing – co-founded by an American – where she ordered a Flying Fist IPA, a beer made with US hops.

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