Japan announces $7 billion plan to develop Mekong region

May 02, 2016

BANGKOK (AP) — Japan's foreign minister announced a $7 billion initiative Monday to promote development in Southeast Asia's Mekong region, which encompasses parts of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand through which the river flows.

In a speech at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Fumio Kishida affirmed the importance of Southeast Asia's economic prosperity to Japan. He pledged 750 billion yen ($7 billion) in funding over the next three years to support development and growth in the region.

The initiative will help promote "connectivity" within Southeast Asian countries and Japan through funding in infrastructure and development of human resources. Thailand has become a key manufacturing and export hub for Japanese manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda.

"Invigorating the flow of goods and people by connecting the region through roads, bridges and railways is indispensable for promoting economic development," he said, adding that Japan's cooperation will go beyond just building infrastructure.

Over the next three years, "we will make use of funds amounting to 750 billion yen toward cooperation with the Mekong region," Kishida said. Specific details have not been announced but he said Japan would like to work together with the Mekong countries to create a framework to support the various efforts, including regional issues and theme-oriented support, in a detailed manner.

"I am expecting the day when, as a result of these efforts, I can depart from Bangkok eastward in the morning and arrive in Ho Chi Minh City at night and enjoy pho for dinner," he said. Kishida also renewed his call for the establishment of a code of conduct in the South China Sea, where China, Vietnam, the Philippines and others have competing territorial claims, and that prosperity can only achieved if there is peace and stability in the region.

"In this region, there are issues of terrorism, extremism, and ensuring maritime safety and security," he said. "There are multitudes of issues now facing our ASEAN partners. We need to face these issues together, and maintain stability in this region. What is necessary is respect for diversity, and what is fundamental for that is the rule of law."

Referring to Thailand's current political situation and its military government, Kishida said he hoped that the people of Thailand will overcome the current difficult challenges and "play more active role in the region and international community."

The visit to Thailand is part of his regional tour that includes stops in China, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

Japan battles to care for 100,000 evacuees after quake

By Harumi Ozawa
Minami-Aso, Japan (AFP)
April 18, 2016

Japan on Monday enlisted US help to airlift supplies to some of the 100,000 people made homeless by earthquakes in the country's south, as rescuers struggled to find those still missing in a massive landslide.

Many of those evacuated after their homes were damaged or destroyed have had to sleep in temporary accommodation or huddle in makeshift shelters, and media have reported problems in delivering food and other essentials.

The disaster-prone country's worst humanitarian challenge since 2011 -- when a quake, tsunami and then nuclear meltdown hit the northeast coast -- has left 44 dead as of early Tuesday, Jiji press reported, and more than 1,000 injured.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government was working to find survivors and care for the displaced, and that the US military had sent aircraft to help with the daunting relief effort.

"Many people are spending anxiety-filled days at evacuation facilities," he told reporters. "We will continue to offer hands-on assistance to the individuals affected."

Around 10,000 people are staying in their cars at an exhibition hall parking lot in the town of Mashiki, but emergency supplies have not been delivered as the facility is not registered as a shelter, Fuji television said.

In another case, volunteers sent supplies and the military brought six tonnes of water to a hospital in Kumamoto city after a doctor complained on Facebook that there was not enough water or food for patients.

"Thanks to this, we don't have to worry about water to wash hands after treating patients," doctor Takeshi Hasuda said.

Kumamoto's mayor took to Twitter on Monday to apologize to the "many voices" who had complained about delays in providing help.

"Please be patient," Kazufumi Onishi wrote, promising that the situation would quickly improve.

The disaster comes at a particularly sensitive time for Abe, just months ahead of elections for the upper house of parliament.

- Race against time -

Up to 25,000 Japanese military and other personnel have fanned out through villages where scores of traditional houses have been left in ruins by Saturday's 7.0 magnitude quake, which struck a part of Japan not used to such tremors.

A number of people are still missing, feared engulfed by landslides, after earthquakes struck the island of Kyushu.

An initial quake on Thursday, measured at 6.2 magnitude by US geologists, affected older buildings and killed nine people. But Saturday's more powerful tremor brought even newer structures crashing down.

Kazuya Shimada, 63, a resident of the landslide-ravaged village of Minami-Aso, said that he had evacuated to another town as his home was uninhabitable.

"Not a single tile is left on the roof," Shimada said.

"I have never seen a landslide like this before," he told AFP. "I had never worried about this before, living here."

Villages in remote mountainous areas have been completely cut off by slippages and damage to roads.

The US military, which has almost 50,000 servicemen and women stationed in Japan, is also taking part in rescue activities.

Tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft were flying to the disaster zone after arriving at a US Marine airbase to take part in relief efforts, officials said.

"The capacity of the Osprey, with vertical takeoff ability, is necessary to swiftly carry supplies to those who are isolated or facing serious traffic congestion," Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Monday.

More than 500 earthquakes have rocked Kumamoto and other parts of central Kyushu since Thursday, stoking fears that houses not damaged in the two major quakes could yet be affected.

Five airlines including All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines said they will resume flights to Kumamoto Airport on Tuesday, Jiji press reported, quoting transport minister Keiichi Ishii as saying this will help accelerate reconstruction efforts.

But flights from the airport remain suspended, Jiji said, as damage from the quakes, including the collapse of ceilings in the airport's terminal buildings, meant it was unable to carry out security checks.

Japan is one of the world's most seismically active countries, sitting on the so-called 'Ring of Fire' around the Pacific tectonic plate.

A huge undersea quake in March 2011 killed around 18,500 people when it sent a devastating tsunami barreling into the northeast coast, sparking a nuclear disaster at Fukushima.

Authorities were lashed for their response to the meltdown, faulted in particular for confusion as the crisis unfolded as well as the handling of evacuees from stricken areas.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Japan_battles_to_care_for_100000_evacuees_after_quake_999.html.

China, Japan foreign ministers meet to smooth tense ties

April 30, 2016

BEIJING (AP) — China portrayed the visit Saturday by the Japanese foreign minister as an act of outreach to an angry Beijing, as the two sides try to repair relations bedeviled by disputes over territory, history and competition for influence in East Asia.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Fumio Kishida that the ties must be based on "respect for history, adherence to commitment, and on cooperation rather than confrontation." Relations have gone through "twists and turns in recent years due to reasons best known by Japan," Wang said, adding that China desires "healthy and stable relations" with its neighbor and key economic partner.

Japan needs to "turn its words into deeds," Wang said. High-level ties between the two countries have been largely frozen since Japan nationalized a string of uninhabited East China Sea islands claimed by China in 2012, sparking deep anger among Chinese. Kishida's visit is the first formal one to China by a Japanese foreign minister in more than four years.

Despite their crucial economic relationship, many Chinese harbor deep animosity toward Japan dating from its brutal invasion and occupation of much of China during the 1930s and 1940s. Meanwhile, distrust toward Beijing runs deep among the Japanese public, who see their country's economic and political influence being overshadowed by a rising China.

China is also deeply critical of Japan's alliance with the U.S. and has warned Tokyo to keep out of a festering dispute over China's moves to cement its claim over virtually the entire South China Sea. Beijing has also lambasted moves by Japanese conservatives seen as whitewashing the country's militaristic past and minimizing World War II atrocities committed in China and elsewhere.

China's Xi moves to take more direct command over military

April 21, 2016

BEIJING (AP) — Bolstering his status as China's most powerful leader in decades, Chinese President Xi Jinping has assumed a more direct role as head of the country's powerful armed forces with the new title of commander in chief of its Joint Operations Command Center, state media and analysts said Thursday.

Xi's new position was revealed in news reports that featured prominently on national news broadcasts Wednesday and Thursday in which he appeared publicly for the first time in camouflage battle dress wearing the joint center's insignia.

During his Wednesday visit, Xi called on the center's staff to "closely follow the trends of global military revolution and strive to build a joint battle command system that meets the need of fighting and winning an informationized war," the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Officers should "change their ideas, innovate and tackle difficulties, in a bid to build a joint battle command system that was absolutely loyal, resourceful in fighting, efficient in commanding and courageous and capable of winning wars," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

Battle command capacities should be measured by "the standards of being able to fight and win wars," Xi said, stressing the need to prepare for conflicts, analyze possible security risks, and handle effectively "all sorts of emergencies."

The joint center, reportedly located underground in the western outskirts of Beijing, is under the direct supervision of the ruling Communist Party's Central Military Commission, which is headed by Xi and oversees the 2.3-million-member People's Liberation Army, the world's largest standing armed forces.

Xi was accompanied on his visit by the commission's two vice chairmen, Gen. Fan Changlong and Gen. Xu Qiliang. Among his several other titles, Xi is also leader of the ruling Communist Party and chair of a recently created National Security Council, which gives him greater control over the domestic security services.

As head of the military, Xi has overseen a reorganization of the PLA's command structure into five theater commands aimed at better integrating the different services. He has ordered a 300,000-person reduction in forces that will see the elimination of many outdated and non-combat units, and shift the emphasis further from ground forces to the navy, air force and missile corps.

Xi's appearance in battle dress with insignia Wednesday emphasized his more direct role in military affairs. When appearing simply as head of the Central Military Commission he routinely wears olive green tunics, shirts and trousers without insignia or decoration, as did his predecessors.

Xi's new choice of apparel "indicates that he not only controls the military, but also does it in an absolute manner, and that in wartime, he is ready to command personally," said Ni Lexiong, a military affairs expert at Shanghai's University of Political Science and Law.

Three years since taking on the presidency, Xi is widely seen as having accumulated more power and authority than any Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping in the late 1980s. A cult of personality has also sprung up around him to rival that of the founder of the communist state, Mao Zedong, with his slogans, sayings and signature political themes widely disseminated in the media.

Yet his reputation has also been called into question by anonymous letters, allegedly from Communist Party members, calling for his resignation. Revelations in the international media about vast wealth accumulated by members of his extended family have meanwhile flown in the face of his relentless campaign against corruption in the party, military and state industries.

Xi's new title and his visit to the joint center were "more political than military" in significance and don't imply he will take charge of the day-to-day running of the PLA, said Andrei Chang, Hong Kong-based editor of the magazine Kanwa Asian Defense and a close observer of Chinese military affairs.

"Throughout Chinese history, political power has always been founded on control of the military," Chang said. "This was a visit to show off his muscle to his potential enemies and show that he is tough and in charge."

Xi's new title and appearance in battle dress may also be a deliberate message to China's chief rivals, including the U.S., Japan, the Philippines and the self-governing island of Taiwan that China has vowed to conquer by force if necessary.

"The combat uniform is not only to show he is in charge of the military, but also shows that China is ready for a fight amid a tense external situation. It is a bit like telling China's opponents that he is ready for a combat," Ni said.

Along with his structural and personnel reforms, Xi has highlighted the PLA's importance with frequent, highly publicized visits to military bases and a massive parade last September that saw the army's latest equipment wheeled through the center of Beijing while warplanes and helicopters roared overhead.

Xi enjoys special cachet with the armed forces, partly due to his late father's status as a military commander and Xi's own brief service as a uniformed aide to a former defense minister, but also because his muscular foreign policy is popular among Chinese nationalists and the defense establishment.

That's been especially true in the disputed South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety and where it has constructed island airfields on former coral reefs and sought to limit the U.S. Navy's ability to operate in the area.

Xi has remained resolute in that approach despite it being blamed for raising tensions with China's Southeast Asian neighbors and prompting the U.S. to devote more resources to Asia and strengthen its cooperation with traditional allies and even former foe Vietnam.

"The most important message he meant to send to the world is that he will not make a concession on the issue of territory even at the cost of a war," Ni said.

IS jihadists pull out of several Iraq towns: officers

Baghdad (AFP)
March 13, 2016

Islamic State fighters retreated from several western Iraqi towns and towards the Syrian border on Sunday as security forces worked their way up the Euphrates Valley, officers said.

The jihadist organisation's leadership ordered its fighters out of Hit, Kubaysa and Rutba, prompting thousands of civilians to take to the road to meet advancing federal forces while others enjoyed their first hours of freedom in months.

"The majority of Daesh (IS) fighters in Hit, Rutba and Kubaysa have fled through the desert to other regions," Yahya Rasool, Iraq's top security spokesman, told AFP.

Hit, around 145 kilometers (90 miles) west of Baghdad, was one of the main towns in Anbar province that was still held by IS.

Kubaysa is a smaller town to the west of Hit while Rutba is a desert outpost on the road to Jordan about 390 kilometers (245 miles) west of the capital.

"There is an operation to hunt them down with Iraqi aircraft," said Rasool, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against IS in Iraq.

"Hit is surrounded by Iraqi forces from the south and north," he said. "Thousands of families have fled the area to meet our forces."

Iraqi government forces have yet to enter Hit and no security source would immediately confirm whether any holdout IS fighters remained.

However, residents reached by AFP said no jihadists were visible on Sunday following a pullout that began on Saturday.

One resident said IS's local military leader was killed in an air strike as he tried to escape on Saturday.

"Ahmed Mashaan Abdelwahed al-Batran was killed when an air raid destroyed his boat -- he was trying to cross the river with his family," he said.

"Since yesterday, the Hisba (Islamic police) has vanished from the streets. Before they withdrew, Daesh (IS) fighters booby-trapped houses, roads and government buildings," he added.

- First cigarette -

Another Hit resident said one of the first things the men did after IS pulled out was to light a cigarette.

"The young people in Hit are smoking on the street and they also changed back into their normal clothes," he said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

"There are women in the street without the niqab (full veil) for the first time" since the town fell to IS in October 2014, he said.

Witnesses and officials said IS leaders -- many of them from the city of Mosul or foreigners -- tried to slip out of Hit by blending in with fleeing families after shaving their beards.

"Yesterday there was not one razor blade left in the markets of Hit," the second witness told AFP.

The top regional army commander, 7th division chief Noman al-Zobaie, overflew the city to assess the situation, senior officials said.

Naim al-Kaoud, leader of the local Albu Nimr tribe, said tribal fighters in the area were close to Hit but awaiting government coordination to move in.

"The decision to retake control of Hit has to come from the leadership of the security forces. It is when they go in that the recapture of Hit will be complete," he told AFP.

In Rutba, "Daesh's armed men started pulling out last night and completed their withdrawal this morning," a major general told AFP on Sunday.

He said they all moved towards Al-Qaim, a jihadist bastion on the border with Syria, further north in Anbar province.

After launching a final push against IS in provincial capital Ramadi late last year, Iraq's security forces established full control over the city last month.

They have since been securing areas east of Ramadi, further isolating the jihadist stronghold of Fallujah, which is only 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

The US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against IS for more than a year and a half has said that the jihadist group was stretched increasingly thin.

Iraqi forces have in recent weeks been trying to flush out jihadists from vast areas around Lake Tharthar, which straddles Anbar and the province of Salaheddin.

In several of its strongholds, IS is reported to have forcibly recruited children for checkpoints duty as it sends adult males into combat.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/IS_jihadists_pull_out_of_several_Iraq_towns_officers_999.html.

Yemeni forces recapture key port city

25 April 2016 Monday

Yemeni troops have recaptured a key port city from Al-Qaeda militants who held it for a year, in what a Saudi-led coalition hailed Monday as a major victory in which over 800 fighters were killed.

The assault on the southeastern city of Mukalla, home to some 200,000 people, was part of a wider counter-offensive against the Sunni extremists launched by pro-government forces last month after a year in which they had focused their firepower on Shiite Huthi rebels who control the capital.

It comes as government and rebel delegations hold peace talks in Kuwait and after US President Barack Obama during a visit to Saudi Arabia called for a negotiated settlement that would enable both sides to turn their attention on Al-Qaeda.

At the talks, which opened last Thursday, UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said that "significant differences... remain but nonetheless there is consensus on the need to make peace".

The peace talks and Obama visit have contributed to a change in "strategic priorities", with Al-Qaeda back at the top, according to the Soufan Group consultancy.

The rebels' Yemen-based branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is regarded by Washington as their most dangerous and the group's militants have come under repeated US air and drone strikes in and around Mukalla.

The rebels used the area as a base to plan attacks overseas, including a January 2015 assault on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12 people in Paris.

"We entered the city center and were met by no resistance from Al-Qaeda militants who withdrew west," a military officer told AFP by telephone from Mukalla.

The officer, who requested anonymity, said residents had appealed to the rebels to spare the city the destruction of fighting and to withdraw.

Qaeda car bombing

Government troops were backed by special forces from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as coalition air strikes, commanders said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Loyalist forces also recaptured a swathe of the adjacent Arabian Sea coast, including the city of Shihr and its Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal as well as Mukalla's Riyan airport.

"The operation resulted... in the deaths of more than 800 Al-Qaeda members and some of their leaders, while some others fled," the coalition commanders said.

The death toll could not be independently confirmed and no indication was given of any civilian casualties.

Mukalla is one of a number of southern cities that Al-Qaeda had overrun since the Saudi-led coalition launched its military intervention in March last year when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into exile after the Iran-backed rebels seized much of the country.

The rebels overran two other provincial capitals further west -- Huta, which government forces recaptured last week, and Zinjibar which they entered late on Saturday, only to beat a tactical retreat.

An Al-Qaeda car bomb killed seven soldiers and wounded 14 as they were entering Zinjibar on Sunday triggering the pullback, military sources said.

"The withdrawal was decided following information that Al-Qaeda was preparing other car bomb attacks against our troops," an officer in the province told AFP.

The counter-offensive against the rebels has come as a fragile April 11 ceasefire between pro-government forces and the rebels firms up.

US drone war

Washington, which has provided reconnaissance and refueling support for the coalition air campaign, had put mounting pressure on coalition leaders to call a halt and seek a negotiated settlement.

Obama joined a Gulf summit last week and Pentagon chief Ashton Carter also held talks with Gulf counterparts.

Washington has been waging a drone war against AQAP since November 2002, when it killed the suspected mastermind of an October 2000 bombing of a US destroyer that killed 17 sailors in the southern port of Aden.

In April last year, a US air strike killed AQAP commander Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, who claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in a video, outside the presidential palace in Mukalla where the rebels had set up base.

Last month, an air strike on an AQAP training camp in Hajr, west of Mukalla, killed more than 70 rebels, provincial officials said.

During its year-long rule in Mukalla, AQAP imposed its strict interpretation of sharia law forbidding consumption of the mild narcotic qat, a mainstay of Yemeni social life, and demolishing the tombs of revered Sufi mystics.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/middle-east/171969/yemeni-forces-recapture-key-port-city.

Troops refuse to fight: Thousands of Yemeni soldiers shun civil war

Friday 22 April 2016

TAIZ, Yemen - Mohammed Abdullah Saeed used to wake up by 5am every day to begin his daily military drills. But when the civil war broke out in Taiz he refused to fight his own countrymen, and fled to his home village.

"Our leadership told us that we should liberate Taiz province from al-Qaeda fighters, but I did not see al-Qaeda in Taiz, I only saw Yemenis kill each other, so the leadership could not convince me to fight," he told Middle East Eye.

"I realized this civil war would destroy our country, and so I fled."

Saeed was not the only conscript soldier to do so - dozens of his colleagues threw down their guns in protest at the coming conflagration, joining an estimated 10,000 who are believed to have deserted.

The result for many were accusations of treachery and isolation, and the loss of any means of support.

The one-time corporal and his comrades came under the control of the Houthi movement after it kicked out the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.

"When I fled the camp, the Houthis stopped my salary, and demanded that I join battle. I refused," he said.

He still gets up at 5am, every day. But instead of training he sells qat, the mild narcotic ubiquitous in Yemen, to make ends meet.

"I do not have another alternative," he says, pointing out that he makes about 20,000 riyals a month - about $80. His soldier's salary was almost twice as much.

He is stuck where he is, as the Houthis hunt for deserters they consider traitors.

"The Houthis have caught hundreds of people, some of them deserters, and until now no one knows where they are," he said.

"If the Houthis caught them, they will go to jail."

A question of faith

Other deserters refuse to kill on the basis of religion - it is considered a terrible sin to kill a fellow Muslim.

Fras Alwan, 45, left his unit in Marib province last April, and fled to his village in Taiz's al-Shimayateen district. His salary was stopped a few months later.

"I am a Muslim, and I trust that Allah will not forget me if I am doing according to the Quran, and the Quran says that it is a big sin to kill a Muslim," he said.

Alwan was conscripted into the Yemeni army and fought armed tribes in Marib before the civil war erupted.

"We fought in military campaigns against the tribesmen who attacked power and oil pipelines, but those were thugs and it was our duty to fight them," he said.

The civil war, he said, had turned into a battle between mercenaries fighting for foreign powers, none of whom care about Yemen nor Islam.

"My neighbors respect me so much, because I did not take part in the war, and most of them help me by providing me with work," Alwan said.

But he, too, is trapped in his village and aware that the Houthis consider him a traitor.

Alwan now works as a laborer, earning more than he did as a soldier, but the work is hard.

"I am suffering from arthritis and this profession is very hard for me, but it is the only solution to get money," Alwan said.

Meanwhile, the war rages on around him even despite a UN-backed attempt to end the fighting, with a ceasefire agreement coming into effect earlier this month.

That truce, however, has been violated by all sides and on multiple occasions. Taiz city is still besieged by the Houthi movement, as it seeks to gain control of the province, and Saudi coalition forces continue to drop weapons to their allies.

As both sides gear up for much-delayed peace talks in Kuwait, the US has agreed to join Saudi-led patrols to prevent Iranian weapons reaching Houthi fighters.

Blood and treasure

A source at the defense ministry in Houthi-controlled Sanaa told Middle East Eye that an estimated 10,000 soldiers had refused to fight for any side in the civil war, and a similar number had rebelled against Houthi control and were now fighting against the movement.

In response, the Houthis had enlisted thousands of civilians into its "Popular Committee" forces as replacements, many of whom are raw recruits who have no other means of support in the war.

The source added: "The ministry has stopped the salaries of more than 20,000 soldiers either because they are pro-government soldiers or because they are peaceniks.

"The ministry does not pay salaries for the pro-government and deserters. That MONEY NOW goes to the Popular Committees."

Ammar al-Wardi is one of those soldiers who decided to side with pro-Hadi forces.

He left his brigade in Taiz city when it came under the control of the Houthis, and crossed over to the Popular Resistance forces fighting them.

"I swore to defend my country, and nowadays I defend my country from the Houthis rebels who try to control the country by force," he added to MEE, stating that he gets the same salary of 35,000 riyals ($140) a month, plus 1,000 a day extra "pocket money" from his commanders.

Ahmed Obaid, a retired army officer, said that Sanaa's defense ministry was acting illegally by stopping payments to its soldiers - it can only dock a certain percentage.

"The ministry has to continue giving salaries to all soldiers as this is the right of their families, but the ministry can use some of the salary if the soldier did not obey the ministry," he said.

He stated that Yemeni law has been violated by the different sides, and the language of force has become the only one that can be heard.

Saeed contemplates the consequences of refusing to fight in a war that has killed thousands of his countrymen.

"I hope the war will stop soon," says Saeed. "Then I will stop selling qat and will join the special forces again."

Source: Middle East Eye.
Link: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemenis-who-refuse-fight-white-feathers-2007823567.