Pakistan Hands Over 145 Fishermen to Indian Authorities

LAHORE, PAKISTAN — 

A Pakistani official says 145 Indian fishermen have been handed over to Indian authorities at a border crossing near the eastern city of Lahore.

Maj. Azam Sher said Friday that the Indian fishermen were previously released from a Karachi prison and transported to Lahore.

The fishermen had been imprisoned during the past year for illegally fishing in Pakistani territorial waters.

Another group of Indian fishermen will be released next month as a goodwill gesture. The country released 220 Indian fishermen in December 2016, a move reciprocated by India but with a smaller figure.

Pakistan's and India's maritime agencies frequently arrest each other's fishermen. Detained fishermen from both sides languish in prison until such goodwill gestures are shown from either side.

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S.Korea Seizes Hong Kong-flagged Ship Suspected of Sending Oil to N.Korea

South Korea’s foreign ministry says the country has seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship that transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in international waters despite United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reports South Korean custom officials say the Lighthouse Winmore vessel transferred “600 tons of refined petroleum” to a North Korean ship October 19. South Korea seized the Lighthouse Winmore on November 24 when it sailed into South Korea’s Yeosu Port, the news agency says.

Yonhap reports the Lighthouse Winmore was chartered by the Billions Bunker Group, a Taiwanese company. The news agency said the ship’s “claimed destination” was in Taiwan, but instead the ship “transferred oil to a North Korean ship, Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea.”

The Lighthouse Winmore is reportedly on the list of ships the U.S. has proposed blacklisting for their prohibited trade with North Korea.

Yonhap reported that South Korea informed the U.S. about its “detection of the illegal transaction.”

Trump accusations

U.S. President Donald Trump accused China Thursday of facilitating oil shipments into North Korea, despite China’s insistence it has not violated United Nations sanctions limiting oil shipments to the rogue nation.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, on Friday again denied any Chinese involvement in smuggling goods into or out of North Korea.

A South Korean newspaper reported earlier Thursday that Chinese and North Korean ships had illicitly connected at sea to get oil into North Korea.

Latest UN sanctions

The U.N. Security Council last week imposed new sanctions designed to limit North Korea access to oil in response to the country’s recent long-range missile test. In November, it test-launched its latest intercontinental ballistic missile, which many U.S. experts have warned would be capable of striking anywhere on U.S. soil.

The sanctions seek to bar 90 percent of refined oil exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and limit crude oil exports at 4 million barrels annually.

China has repeatedly said it is enforcing all resolutions against Pyongyang, despite doubts in the U.S., South Korea and Japan that loopholes continue to exist.

When asked at a recent media briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally loading oil on North Korean vessels, Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang repeated that China and its military are strictly enforcing U.N. resolutions on North Korea.

“The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist,” Ren said.

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Philippines Preps Economy for Bumper Year in 2018

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — 

Officials in the Philippines, one of Asia’s fastest growing economies, are planning a series of economic stimulus measures in 2018 to ease poverty and compensate for a lag in foreign investment.

Manila is building $169 billion in infrastructure, such as railways and an airport terminal, while toying with legal changes that would let foreigners own larger shares of localized businesses.

​Tax reform

In another major step, President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law this month the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion act. Tax revenue would pay for infrastructure and social services.

The idea is to create jobs and bring in foreign investment. Those outcomes would help sustain economic growth while giving the government funds to ease poverty that afflicts about a quarter of the population of 102 million.

“As the country builds for the future, there is the developing (of) social capital,” said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.

“Developing social capital eventually means these are your health, technical skills and education that are needed by individuals,” he said. “That’s part and parcel of the package.”

​Infrastructure and taxes

The World Bank forecasts 6.7 percent growth in the Philippine economy this year followed by 6.8 percent in 2018 and 2019. Much of the growth comes from overseas remittances, a boom in call-center jobs and consumption.

A cornerstone of Duterte’s economic policies is the “Build, Build, Build” program to replace decayed infrastructure through 2022 by adding the likes of railways and expressways.

By 2019, a small airport three hours north of Manila will open a new terminal to ease congestion in the capital, for example.

Officials hope new infrastructure will entice foreign factory investment that’s now deterred in part by transportation delays. Foreign investment makes up less than 3 percent of the economy now, lagging Asian peers such as South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The tax law signed by Duterte on December 19 is expected to generate $1.8 billion in revenues in its first year. It exempts tax payments for people earning less than the equivalent of $5,005 per year while shifting payment burdens to wealthier people and vehicle owners.

Congress received a bill in 2016 that would lower corporate taxes by 2 percentage points per year until they drop from today’s 30 percent, among Southeast Asia’s highest, to 20 percent.

“I think the way they are going about overhauling the tax code is clearly something that is somewhat path-breaking,” said Rahul Bajoria, a regional economist with Barclays in Singapore.

“They’re looking to tax the right set of individuals,” he said. “It kind of makes sense, and if they’re able to do the same with the corporate tax code, that would be a pretty significant achievement because the tax base itself is quite small.”

The government is also eyeing monetary policy changes to keep inflation in check, economists believe.

And in November Duterte told the National Economic and Development Authority Board to work on easing restrictions on foreign participation in certain industries where ownership is restricted.

Foreign companies, a potential provider of factory jobs for Filipinos, have held back investments because of those restrictions.

​Roadblocks

The government aims to cut poverty from 26 percent to 17 percent by 2020, according to the Ministry of Finance. But snags in the proposed economic measures could limit the jobs or funding needed to reach that goal, some fear.

Timelines for new infrastructure, which is paid in part by foreign aid, is catching attention now given the country’s budget deficit, Ravelas said.

“What people are looking at now is how fast they are going to push the spending,” he said.

Infrastructure spending has grown from 5 percent of GDP in 2016 to about 7.45 percent now because of the surge in infrastructure construction.

But that program contributed to a 234.9 billion peso ($4.7 billion) budget deficit in the first 10 months of this year, 9 percent more than in the same period of 2016.

Economists still say Duterte is doing more than previous presidents to overhaul the economy and reduce poverty.

But past Philippine presidents have tried the same, particularly with infrastructure spending and tax reform, with little to show, said Renato Reyes, secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabaya alliance of left-wing Philippine organizations.

His alliance advocates land reform instead of the government’s “neoliberal” policies.

“Previous presidents have had their own versions of the same economic stimulus programs, which did not really raise the livelihood of the ordinary folks, but it did contribute to making economic statistics look a little better,” Reyes said.

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Mumbai Fire Leaves 15 Dead, 50 Hurt

NEW DELHI — 

At least 15 people were killed and more than 50 injured in a fire that broke out in a restaurant in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, early Friday, officials said.

The fire quickly spread from the top-floor restaurant through a four-story building, said fire official Balkrishna Kadam.

More than 50 people have been taken to a hospital. The dead included 11 women, fire officials said.

The building, in the formerly industrial area of central Mumbai, houses several upscale restaurants that had moved in over the last few years to make it a popular nightlife destination, the New Delhi Television channel reported.

“There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames. Still don’t know how I got out alive,”’ Mumbai gynecologist Sulbha Arora tweeted.

She said she was at the restaurant when the fire started and “before we knew it the whole place was engulfed in a matter of seconds.”

Several TV news channels operating from the compound had to stop broadcasting, reportedly because of damage to their equipment.

Eight fire engines battled the blaze for more than five hours, Kadam said.

The cause of the fire that started around 1 a.m. Friday is under investigation.

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Religious Scholars Urge Afghan Taliban to Sever Ties With Terror Groups

Afghan religious leaders Wednesday called on the Afghan Taliban to sever ties with terror groups and join the Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process.

The High Peace Council (HPC), a government-funded body tasked with bringing insurgents to negotiations, invited more than 700 religious scholars from all 34 provinces of Afghanistan for a two-day conference in the capital, Kabul, to discuss peace efforts to help end the country's 16-year bloody insurgency.

"Taliban should remove all those elements from their ranks and files that have ties with international terrorism and have no respect for Islamic and Afghan values," read a joint declaration released at the end of the conference.

Attaullah Faizani, a religious scholar who attended the conference, said the Taliban must cease violence.

"Taliban must respect the aspirations of the Afghan people and join the Afghan-owned and intra-Afghan peace talks," Faizani said. "Whatever their demands are must be discussed peacefully through negotiations. They must immediately cease violence, suicide attacks, explosions and the targeting of innocent civilians."

The declaration also calls on the Afghan government to be flexible and patient with the peace process.

Addressing the conference in Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said his government had no reservations about endorsing the demands of the religious scholars. He went on to criticize the insurgents.

"We accept all of it [the demands of the scholars], but I hope that the Taliban also endorses your demands to prove who has the commitment and the intention for peace," Ghani said.

Mohammad Akram Khpalwak, an adviser to the Afghan president and CEO of the Executive Secretariat of the High Peace Council, told the gathering that the government seeks a dignified resolution of the Afghan conflict.

"We say we want peace with dignity. We do not want surrender. Rather we insist that we do not have any conditions for the beginning of direct negotiations," Khpalwak said. "If they [Taliban] have any conditions, they should put them on the table."

The HPC apparently is using its peace talks with the leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, as a model for the Taliban to get the insurgent group to talk with the Afghan government and end its armed insurgency.

Hekmatyar, a former U.S.-designated global terrorist, returned to Kabul in May of this year after almost two decades in hiding, following a peace deal with the Afghan government.

The Afghan government is expected to announce its peace strategy with the Taliban in the upcoming Kabul Process conference. Representatives of several countries and international organizations are expected to attend the conference.

A day after the religious scholars' conference, a suicide attack Thursday at a Shiite Muslim center west of Kabul killed more than 40 people and injured another 80, including women and children.

The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.

VOA's Afghanistan service contributed to this report.

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UN Gathers Horror Stories from Rohingya Women Fleeing Myanmar

Rohingya women who say they fled mistreatment by the military in Myanmar have told tales of horror that leading human rights groups have documented.

Now, living in massive refugee camps and settlements near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, victims must deal with past traumas and face new risks.

Rejina is a grandmother who didn't want her last name used. She said she has felt empty inside since losing contact with her 15-year-old granddaughter, following the army's first wave of so-called clearance operations targeting the teenager's village of Khadi Bil in Myanmar's Maungdaw township. The military action in October 2016 followed deadly insurgent attacks on border guard posts in Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state.

"I heard that the military came and entered the house and grabbed her and stole her property," said Rejina, 65, now living in the Kutipalong camp in Bangladesh.

"They checked the house and grabbed whatever they wanted. If they found any young women, they took them away. Lots of women were raped," Rejina said.

​Severe after-effects

While thousands of female refugees might appear to be coping with conditions in the border camps, many survivors of alleged sexual violence by Myanmar security forces suffer from severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Accounts gathered by rights groups support the accusations of widespread rape by the Myanmar army on the Rohingya population.

Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, interviewed survivors in Bangladesh in November and said, "I heard the most heartbreaking and horrific accounts of sexual atrocities, reportedly committed in cold blood out of a lethal hatred for these people, solely on the basis of their ethnicity and religion. The wounds are extremely raw, dozens of women and girls dissolving to tears when recounting acts of unmitigated brutality."

Access to therapy and treatment is lacking as more pressing issues like food supplies and adequate shelter take precedence in the 10 camps. Lack of communication adds to the dilemma, as efforts to get the word out to women in need prove difficult.

"Many women also lost their husbands, so you have many female-headed households," said Jessica Olney, regional spokeswoman for the Center for Social Integrity.

"Women are still needing to figure out how services work and how to access them, and they don't necessarily have experience advocating for them, so they are going without and that puts them in a vulnerable position," Olney said.

To aid in treatment, NGOs like the International Organization for Migration are building women's safe areas where they can receive psychosocial support from medical professionals.

Safe place to talk

"In these centers, it's safe and secure and there are only other women there and they can talk about the things that are important to them," said Fiona MacGregor, IOM communications officer.

"It's an opportunity to hear what their needs are and find ways of reacting to that," MacGregor said.

"These are also people who come from very small villages, and suddenly they are finding themselves in a place where there are more than 800,000 people living in the camps," she said.

In addition to previous traumas, many of the new arrivals face the added risk of human trafficking as criminal networks prey on those seeking work.

"One thing we identified as a particular risk in the camps here is trafficking," MacGregor said. "Women and girls are particularly vulnerable, and we're hearing about traffickers approaching women and tricking them or persuading them to go for what they think are safe jobs somewhere else and they are ending up in situations of real exploitation." She said some wind up "in the sex industry, or we are hearing about girls and women being promised domestic work and find they're in different situations."

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have left Rakhine state since August 25, after insurgents attacked security forces and prompted a brutal military crackdown that has been described as ethnic cleansing. Since then, the IOM has provided 2,500 people with psychological first aid, but if stories gathered by rights groups are accurate, the refugees face a long road to recovery.

Myanmar's government has repeatedly rejected claims that atrocities, including rape and extrajudicial killings, are occurring in northern Rakhine, the epicenter of the violence.

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Trump Accuses China of Allowing Oil Into North Korea

U.S. President Donald Trump accused China Thursday of facilitating oil shipments into North Korea, despite China's insistence it has not violated United Nations sanctions limiting oil shipments to the rogue nation. Writing on Twitter, he said he is "very disappointed."

A South Korean newspaper reported earlier Thursday that Chinese and North Korean ships had illicitly connected at sea to get oil into North Korea.

The U.N. Security Council last week imposed new sanctions designed to limit North Korea access to oil in response to the country's recent long-range missile test. In November, it test-launched its latest intercontinental ballistic missile, which many U.S. experts have warned would be capable of striking anywhere on U.S. soil.

The sanctions seek to bar 90-percent of refined oil exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and limit crude oil exports at 4 million barrels annually.

China has repeatedly said it is enforcing all resolutions against Pyongyang, despite doubts in the U.S., South Korea and Japan that loopholes continue to exist.

When asked at a recent media briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally loading oil on North Korean vessels, Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang repeated that China and its military are strictly enforcing U.N. resolutions on North Korea.

"The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist," said Ren.

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