Today’s News 22 April 2021 (Thursday)

A. NAVY NEWS/COVID NEWS/PHOTOS Title Writer Newspaper Page China producing more 3B Covid-19 D Tribune B14 1 vaccines

B. NATIONAL HEADLINES Title Writer Newspaper Page 2 5 Regions running out of ICU beds- DOH S Crisostomo P Star 1 House to house testing to see Real State of PDI A1 3 P Chiu PH

C. NATIONAL SECURITY Title Writer Newspaper Page 4 DND: MDT can’t force China out of WPS M Punongbayan P Star 2 5 US just call away if PH needs help to R Mabasa M Bulletin 1 remove’ Chinese vessels in WPS 6 Esperon tells Filipino fishermen: Go out and M Sadongdong M Bulletin 2 fish in West PH Sea 7 PH backs intl pact on marine resources B Tamayo M Times A2 8 Govt ready to protect oil and gas resources J Lagare M Times A3 9 Cusi: Gov’t will protect oil and gas resources M Romero D Tribune A1 10 Risa, Kiko: Probe foreign boats’ overfishing S Locus D Tribune A6 at WPS 11 US handa tumulong sa Pinas vs China J Patricio P Files 2 12 Carpio: Pinas `di maaring tumiklop sa harap P Files 8 ng uncursions ng China sa West PH Sea

D. INDO-PACIFIC Title Writer Newspaper Page NIL NIL NIL NIL

E. AFP RELATED Title Writer Newspaper Page 13 Pakistan to help modernize PH military D Reyes M Times A1 Duterte leads support for community M Times A1 14 C Valente pantries NoCot cop slain, 3 others wounded in anti- M Bulletin 8 15 drug op 16 Cop, suspect die in raid J Roson D Tribune B15 17 Parak todas, 2 pa sugatan sa raid R Beñez Ngayon 9 18 3 ‘tulak’ utas, 4 huli sa buy- bust R Beñez Ngayon 9 19 2 CAFGU men nabbed for klling 2 farmers Z Comanda Tempo 5

F. CPP-NPA-NDF-LCM Title Writer Newspaper Page - PDI 2 20 Despite ‘ Red tagging,’ community N Valenzuela panmtries rise to 350, says advocate Esperon: NTF- ELCAC just P Star 1 21 ‘observing’ G Montegrande community pantries Anti- terror body to name 25 Reds as P Star 1 22 R Cabrera terrorists Anti- Duterte groups told to enjoy freedom of R Cabrera P Star 3 23 expression

G. MNLF/MILF/BIFF/ASG Title Writer Newspaper Page NIL NIL NIL NIL

H. EDITORIAL-OPINION-COMMENTARY-SPECIAL Title Writer Newspaper Page 24 Why Chinese fishermen are in the WPS A Carpio PDI A6 25 Ganging up on a good thing PDI A6 26 Fil- Ams’ plea to Biden: US vax for PH M Doyo PDI A9 27 Virtual surrender of WPS to China F Pascual Jr. P Star 4 28 No coup plot against Digong R Tulfo M Times A1 Defending our sovereign rights over the M Times A4 29 R Saludo seas 30 Man up, Mr. President R Roque, Jr. Tempo 5 31 Tameme sa China B Quejada PM 3

I. ONLINE NEWS Title Link NATIONAL NEWS Anti-Duterte groups told to enjoy https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/22 32 freedom of expression /2092864/anti-duterte-groups-told-enjoy- freedom-expression Bising’ maintains strength while it https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/bising- 33 begins to move away from maintains-strength-while-it-begins-to-move- away-from-luzon/ NAVY NEWS Analyst: Duterte doesn't care about the https://news.abs- 34 West cbn.com/news/04/21/21/analyst-duterte- doesnt-care-about-the-west-philippine-sea to deal with China incursion https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/natio 35 with own assets, says Esperon n/784626/philippines-to-deal-with-china- incursion-with-own-assets-says-esperon/story/ Esperon tells Filipino fishermen: Go out https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/esperon-tells- 36 and fish in West PH Sea filipino-fishermen-go-out-and-fish-in-west-ph- sea/ Philippines sends more ships to West https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/21 37 Philippine Sea /2092850/philippines-sends-more-ships-west- philippine-sea Risa, Kiko: Probe foreign boats’ https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/04/22/ris 38 overfishing at WPS a-kiko-probe-foreign-boats-overfishing-at-wps/ BFAR urged to account for fish catch https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/bfar-urged-to- 39 lost due to Chinese pressure in WPS account-for-fish-catch-lost-due-to-chinese- pressure-in-wps/ DOE Takes Cue On WPS Drilling From https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/04/22/doe- 40 Palace, DFA takes-cue-on-wps-drilling-from-palace-dfa/ Gov’t ready to protect Phl oil and gas https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/04/21/go 41 resources in WPS—Cusi vt-ready-to-protect-phl-oil-and-gas-resources- in-wps-cusi/ Mga mangingisda sa Masinloc, normal https://news.abs- na nakakapaghanap-buhay sa ngayon cbn.com/video/news/04/21/21/mga- 42 mangingisda-sa-masinloc-normal-na- nakakapaghanap-buhay-sa-ngayon Mga mangingisdang Pinoy 'di dapat https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/21/21/mga- 43 matakot lumaot sa West PH Sea: DA mangingisdang-pinoy-di-dapat-matakot-

lumaot-sa-west-ph-sea-da Four crew dead, 9 missing after cargo https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-storm- ship runs aground in Philippines philippines/four-crew-dead-9-missing-after- 44 cargo-ship-runs-aground-in-philippines- idUSKBN2C80XP Coast Guard restores oldest working https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/coast-guard- 45 lighthouse in Batangas restores-oldest-working-lighthouse-in- batangas/ AFP RELATED Duterte offers to resign if former military https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/duterte-offers- 46 generals in Cabinet get involved in to-resign-if-former-military-generals-in-cabinet- corruption get-involved-in-corruption/ Senators push to defund NTF-ELCAC https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/4/22/sen 47 amid red-tagging issue ators-push-to-defund-ntf-elcac.html Anti-terror body to name 25 Reds as https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/22 48 terrorists /2092898/anti-terror-body-name-25-reds- terrorists House inquiry into red-tagging of https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/house-inquiry- 49 community pantry organizers sought into-red-tagging-of-community-pantry- organizers-sought/ Panelo backs ‘probability’ Reds taking https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137561 50 advantage of pantries Parlade likens community pantry to https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/parlade-likens- 51 Satan’s apple community-pantry-to-satans-apple/ 'We're just checking': Parlade denies https://news.abs- 'profiling' community pantry organizers cbn.com/news/04/21/21/were-just-checking- 52 parlade-rejects-profiling-community-pantry- organizers Parlade downplays chilling effect https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/natio caused by background checks on n/784618/parlade-downplays-chilling-effect- 53 community pantries caused-by-background-checks-on-community- pantries/story/ Militant groups welcome to set up https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/militant-groups- 54 community pantries- DILG welcome-to-set-up-community-pantries-dilg/ Don't use community pantries in anti- https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137516 55 gov't propaganda: PNP

Red tagging sa community pantries https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/21/21/sino- 56 'galing sa itaas,' ayon sa dating nagpautos-red-tagging-community-pantry-neri- kongresista colmenares-comment Gabriela urges House: Tap P19-B https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/gabriela-urges- NTF- house-tap-p19-b-ntf-elcac-fund-for-ayuda-bill- 57 ELCAC fund for ‘ayuda’ bill, Bayanihan 3 bayanihan-3/

NTF-ELCAC’s Esperon: Community https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/ntf-elcacs- 58 ‘bayanihan’ projects encouraged bu… esperon-community-bayanihan-projects- encouraged-but/ Belmonte appeals to NTF-ELCAC: Be https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/belmonte- 59 more sensitive, don’t stoke fear appeals-to-ntf-elcac-be-more-sensitive-dont- stoke-fear/ Belmonte hits Badoy for calling https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/belmonte-hits- 60 community pantries ‘communist badoy-for-calling-community-pantries- propaganda’ communist-propaganda/ What to do if law enforcers visit your https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/21 61 community pantry? Diokno offers tips /2092758/what-do-if-law-enforcers-visit-your- community-pantry-diokno-offers-tips Presidential task force exec: No truth in https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/21 62 alleged kidnapping of activist /2092730/presidential-task-force-exec-no- truth-alleged-kidnapping-activist What’s next for wounded soldiers? It https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/whats-next-for- 63 could be mushroom farming wounded-soldiers-it-could-be-mushroom- farming/ INDO PACIFIC NEWS Cross our red lines and you will regret https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cross-our- 64 it, Putin warns West red-lines-and-you-will-regret-it-putin-warns- west-k7kc3wkck Twelve U.S. states urge Biden to back https://www.reuters.com/business/twelve-us- 65 phasing out gas-powered vehicle sales states-urge-biden-back-phasing-out-gas- by 2035 powered-vehicle-sales-by-2035-2021-04-21/ ‘Last Straw’: Americans confront https://www.reuters.com/world/us/last-straw- 66 racism, violence in Chauvin trial americans-confront-racism-violence-chauvin- trial-2021-04-21/ New rules allowing small drones to fly https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace- 67 over people in U.S. take effect defense/new-rules-allowing-small-drones-fly- over-people-us-take-effect-2021-04-21/ US Pacific Islanders highlight their https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3130 cultures and concerns as pushback 357/aapi-grows-label-us-pacific-islanders- 68 against anti-Asian hate sees them point-out-uniqueness-their swept up in AAPI acronym Biden calls Chauvin verdict a 'giant https://www.reuters.com/business/legal/biden- 69 step' toward justice in the United says-praying-right-verdict-chauvin-trial-2021- States 04-20/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/us-climate- 70 US Climate Summit: Who’s Attending From the Asia-Pacific? summit-whos-attending-from-the-asia-pacific/ US hopes China will unveil more https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ 71 measures to fight climate crisis at article/3130517/us-hopes-xi-jinping-will-unveil- summit further-measures-fight-climate Panel recommends that U.S. officials https://www.reuters.com/world/asia- 72 not go to China's Olympics pacific/panel-recommends-that-us-officials-not- go-chinas-olympics-2021-04-21/ US lawmakers back US$100 billion https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united- 73 science push to compete with China states-canada/article/3130523/us-lawmakers- back-us100-billion-science-push U.S. bill aimed at countering China https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202104210020 74 aggression set to pass committee stage U.S. lawmakers intensify bipartisan https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us- 75 efforts to counter China lawmakers-look-advance-sweeping-bid- counter-china-2021-04-21/ Senators propose more programmes to https://www.scmp.com/knowledge/us-china- 76 help US compete with China relations/article/3130528/senators-propose- more-programmes-help-us-compete-china Biden's call to Putin puts Xi on the https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China- 77 defensive up-close/Analysis-Biden-s-call-to-Putin-puts- Xi-on-the-defensive China, Russia vow to buckle up against https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ 78 ‘geopolitical turbulence belt’ article/3130502/china-russia-vow-buckle- against-geopolitical-turbulence-belt Xi to attend Biden's climate change https://www.reuters.com/business/environment 79 summit in first meeting of two leaders /chinas-xi-attend-climate-change-summit- bidens-invitation-2021-04-21/ China to join US climate change summit https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-to- 80 — on its own terms join-us-climate-change-summit-on-its-own- terms-s39722nzd Xi Challenges U.S. Global Leadership, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202 81 Warns Against Decoupling 1-04-19/xi-to-address-global-risks-at-china-s- high-profile-boao-forum?srnd=premium-asia Study Xi’s legal theories for https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/artic 82 ‘fundamental guidance’, lawmakers told le/3130460/chinas-lawmakers-told-vigorously- study-xi-jinpings-legal Chinese Diplomat Signals No Thaw in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202 83 Icy Ties with Australia 1-04-21/chinese-diplomat-signals-no-thaw-in- icy-ties-with-australia?srnd=premium-asia China opposes Australia's cancelling of https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04- 84 Belt and Road deals with China 21/Australia-cancels-Belt-and-Road-deals- with-China--ZEak8IZnby/index.html Foreign journalists welcome if they https://www.scmp.com/week- 85 ‘present true image’ of China: diplomat asia/politics/article/3130486/china-welcomes- foreign-journalists-if-they-present-true-image China, Myanmar and others criticised https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china- 86 in report on rising religious persecution myanmar-others-criticised-report-rising- religious-persecution-2021-04-20/ Hong Kong activists retreat as China- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong- style justice comes to their city security-bail-special-report/special-report- 87 hong-kong-activists-retreat-as-china-style- justice-comes-to-their-city-idUSKBN2C80ZQ Beijing crackdown empties homes in https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beijing- 88 Hong Kong crackdown-empties-homes-in-hong-kong- tg0hkxtbz China tells India: Put border dispute at https://www.hindustantimes.com/world- appropriate position news/put-border-dispute-at-appropriate- 89 position-china-tells-india- 101619033265569.html New Normal In Sino-Indian Ties https://warontherocks.com/2021/04/china-and- 90 india-de-escalation-signals-new-normal-rather- than-a-return-to-the-status-quo/ China urges Japan to reflect upon http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021- 91 history of aggression 04/21/c_139896434.htm Wang Yi urges Japan to carefully deal https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04- with nuclear polluted water 21/Wang-Yi-urges-Japan-to-carefully-deal- 92 with-nuclear-polluted-water- ZEiFUg2L0k/index.html China Not Discriminating Against https://www.voanews.com/east-asia- 93 Foreign Journalists, Envoy Says pacific/china-not-discriminating-against- foreign-journalists-envoy-says The Missing Uyghur Children https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/the-missing- 94 uyghur-children/ South Korea looks to U.S. for COVID-19 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health- vaccine aid coronavirus-southkorea-usa/return-the-favour- 95 south-korea-looks-to-u-s-for-covid-19-vaccine- aid-idUSKBN2C80I7 S.Korea court dismisses 'comfort https://www.reuters.com/world/china/skorea- 96 women' lawsuit, contradicts earlier court-dismisses-comfort-women-lawsuit- ruling contradicts-earlier-ruling-2021-04-21/ IAEA chief hopes Korea takes part in https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2021 97 Fukushima water monitoring /04/120_307525.html Moon Jae-in says Trump ‘beat around https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east- 98 bush’ after meeting Kim Jong-un asia/article/3130515/trump-beat-around-bush- after-meeting-kim-jong-un-south-korean Japan expected to take position of https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ 99 ‘ambiguity’ on issue article/3130511/japan-expected-take-position- ambiguity-taiwan-issue Japan PM cancels trip to India, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia- 100 Philippines amid rising COVID-19 cases pacific/japan-pm-postpone-visit-india- philippines-media-2021-04-21/ Myanmar activists hold 'blue shirt' https://www.reuters.com/world/asia- protests; report says junta chief to pacific/myanmar-sees-blue-shirt-protests-over- 101 attend summit detentions-junta-outlaws-unity-govt-2021-04- 21/ UN envoy to hold "sideline" meetings https://www.reuters.com/world/asia- ahead of ASEAN summit on Myanmar pacific/exclusive-un-envoy-hold-sideline- 102 meetings-ahead-asean-summit-myanmar- 2021-04-21/ Junta says Min Aung Hlaing will attend https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Myanmar- 103 ASEAN summit Coup/Myanmar-coup-latest-Junta-says-Min- Aung-Hlaing-will-attend-ASEAN-summit Junta had plotted coup for years, says https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/junta- 104 defecting major plotted-military-coup-myanmar-v508ql39g Junta attacks displace nearly 250,000 https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2021/04/6 105 people in Myanmar 84161/junta-attacks-displace-nearly-250000- people-myanmar-un-envoy Myanmar outlaws newly formed unity https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archiv 106 government es/2021/04/22/2003756159 Australia cancels Belt and Road deals; https://www.reuters.com/world/china/australia- 107 China warns of further damage to ties cancels-victoria-states-belt-road-deals-with- china-2021-04-21/ Taiwan MAC: Global opposition to https://focustaiwan.tw/cross- 108 China holds danger, opportunity for strait/202104210016 Taiwan Taiwan seeks to join IAEA probe into https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182 109 Japan's wastewater release 892 Taiwan ally Paraguay rejects 'blackmail' https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182 110 following Chinese attempt at vaccine 976 diplomacy European Values Center opens in https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182 111 Taiwan to monitor Chinese interference 752 Biden-Suga summit leaves Moon with https://www.nationthailand.com/international/4 112 few options 0000050 Shell trial of hydrogen fuel cell for ships https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/14- 113 among projects planned for maritime projects-including-shell-trial-of-hydrogen-fuel- decarbonization in Singapore cell-for-ships-follow-international Latin America Believed in Chinese https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/latin-america- 114 Vaccines. Now It May Have Reason to believed-in-chinese-vaccines-now-it-may- Rethink have-reason-to-rethink/ Can Multilateral Cooperation Coexist https://www.project- with Great-Power Rivalry? syndicate.org/commentary/us-china- 115 cooperation-on-climate-corporate-tax-and- sdrs-by-kemal-dervis-and-sebastian-strauss- 2021-04 The U.S.-Japan Summit: Uneventful https://www.fpri.org/article/2021/04/the-u-s- 116 and Indecisive japan-summit-uneventful-and-indecisive/ After Xi: Future Scenarios for https://www.csis.org/analysis/after-xi-future- 117 Leadership Succession in Post-Xi scenarios-leadership-succession-post-xi- Jinping Era jinping-era DEFENSE NEWS Ex- DFA chief Del Rosario urges https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/ex-dfa-chief-del- rosario-urges-duterte-to-display-stronger- 118 Duterte to display ‘stronger, more strategic leadership’ amid China’s more-strategic-leadership-amid-chinas- aggressiveness in West PH Sea aggressiveness-in-west-ph-sea/ Philippines says boosting maritime https://www.reuters.com/world/asia- presence to protect territory, resources pacific/philippines-says-boosting-maritime- 119 presence-protect-territory-resources-2021-04- 21/ Philippines poised to increase its https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast- 120 presence in South China Sea amid asia/article/3130478/philippines-poised- tensions with Beijing increase-its-presence-south-china-sea PH sends more ships, planes for https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/ph-sends-more- 121 increased patrols in West PH Sea ships-planes-for-increased-patrols-in-west-ph- sea/ PH Navy eyes tie-up with Turkey for https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137465 122 modernization efforts Analyst questions government https://news.abs- commitment to West PH Sea cbn.com/video/news/04/21/21/analyst- 123 questions-government-commitment-to-west- ph-sea Suspected state-backed Chinese https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ 124 hackers spied on US, European targets article/3130406/suspected-state-backed- chinese-hackers-spied-us-european China-linked hackers used VPN flaw to https://www.reuters.com/technology/china- 125 target U.S. defense industry - linked-hackers-used-pulse-secure-flaw-target- researchers us-defense-industry-2021-04-20/ Chinese firm claims new stealth drone https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/arti 126 may rival US Air Force’s B-21 Raider cle/3130471/chinese-firm-claims-new-stealth- drone-may-rival-us-air-forces-b China showcases high-tech radar at https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/china-boasts- 127 Expo 2021 portable-anti-stealth-radar-at-expo-2021/

US-China tech war: semiconductor https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech- 128 supply chain risks a worry for both sides trends/article/3130437/us-china-tech-war- semiconductor-supply-chain-risks-worry-both Commander Says Africa Is Too http://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/ 129 Important for Americans to Ignore Article/2580930/commander-says-africa-is-too- important-for-americans-to-ignore/ US commander warns China’s new https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united- 130 nuclear reactors could yield weapons- states-canada/article/3130518/chinas-new- grade plutonium nuclear-reactors-could-yield-weapons New US cyber-hardening mandates https://www.c4isrnet.com/digital-show- may be coming for defense firms dailies/c4isr-conference/2021/04/21/new- 131 defense-industrial-base-cyber-hardening- requirements-likely/ Indo-Pacific commander Aquilino https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/ 132 confirmed in Senate 04/21/indo-pacific-commander-aquilino- confirmed-in-senate/ Conventional Deterrence And The U.S. https://cimsec.org/conventional-deterrence- 133 Navy: Why The Future Needs To and-the-u-s-navy-why-the-future-needs-to- Happen Now, Pt. 2 happen-now-pt-ii/ U.S. commanders seek approval for https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us- aircraft carrier near Afghanistan during commanders-seek-approval-aircraft-carrier- 134 withdrawal near-afghanistan-during-withdrawal-2021-04- 21/ U.S. Navy Warship Shadows China https://www.newsweek.com/us-navy-warship- 135 Aircraft Carrier in Video shadows-china-aircraft-carrier-video-1585274 Huge US Navy Exercise Helps https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/huge- 136 Admirals Decide How to Remake Fleet navy-exercise-helps-admirals-decide-how-to- remake-fleet/ US Navy Information Warfare Leader https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/artic 137 Says IT Adoption Too Slow les/2021/4/21/just-in-military-must-speed-up-it- acquisition-process US Marines: Limited AAV Operations https://news.usni.org/2021/04/21/marines- on Water Resume As Vehicle limited-aav-operations-on-water-resume-as- 138 Inspections, Unit Certifications vehicle-inspections-unit-certifications-required- Required in Fatal Sinking Aftermath in-fatal-sinking-aftermath US spy planes keep close on China https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ 139 amid live-fire military exercises article/3130500/us-spy-planes-keep-close-eye- china-amid-live-fire-military US Government to Shell Out $15 Billion https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/artic 140 for Hypersonics les/2021/4/21/government-to-shell-out-15- billion-for-hypersonics NASA's Perseverance rover just turned https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa- CO2 into oxygen. The technology perseverance-rover-moxie-device-turns- 141 could help future astronauts breathe on carbon-dioxide-into-oxygen-2021-4 Mars Report to US Congress on Lethal https://news.usni.org/2021/04/21/report-to- 142 Autonomous Weapon Systems congress-on-lethal-autonomous-weapon- systems-2 International Discussions Concerning https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2 143 Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems 0685390/if11294.pdf A Target-Rich Environment https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2 144 021/april/target-rich-environment Rescue vessels begin search for https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia- 145 missing Indonesian submarine pacific/2021/04/21/rescue-vessels-begin- search-for-missing-indonesian-submarine/ Indonesia searching for missing https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast- 146 submarine with 53 people on board asia/article/3130490/indonesia-searching-53- people-aboard-missing-submarine Search for missing Indonesian https://www.hindustantimes.com/world- submarine finds oil spill news/search-for-missing-indonesian- 147 submarine-finds-oil-spill- 101619014043788.html Indonesia must address gender https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/04/ perspectives in counterterrorism 21/indonesia-must-address-gender- 148 perspectives-in-counterterrorism-experts- suggest.html Japan troops won’t get involved if China https://www.scmp.com/week- 149 invades Taiwan, PM Yoshihide Suga asia/politics/article/3130423/japan-troops- says wont-get-involved-if-china-invades-taiwan-pm Japan prepares to join Five Eyes https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/japan- 150 intelligence-sharing network prepares-to-join-anglophone-intelligence- sharing-network-8dsmsz5wm Japan accuses Chinese military hacker https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/japan- 151 over cyberattacks accuses-chinese-military-hacker-over- cyberattacks-mj78m2lnd 9 Chinese military planes intrude into https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182 152 Taiwan’s ADIZ 612 Community of employers formed to https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/comm 153 strengthen initiatives for Singapore’s unity-of-employers-formed-to-strengthen- national servicemen initiatives-for-national-servicemen Sri Lanka asks Chinese ship to leave https://www.hindustantimes.com/world- Hambantota port; radioactive material news/sri-lanka-asks-chinese-ship-to-leave- 154 found hambantota-port-radioactive-material-found- 101619013465326.html Car bomb kills 4 at Pakistan hotel https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south- 155 hosting China’s ambassador asia/article/3130525/car-bomb-kills-4-pakistan- hotel-where-chinas-ambassador-was Russia plans to launch own space https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia- 156 station after quitting ISS space/russia-plans-to-launch-own-space- station-after-quitting-iss-idUSKBN2C82RK Facebook Uncloaks A Palestinian Spy https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/ 157 Agency’s Android Hacking Operations 2021/04/21/facebook-uncloaks-a-palestinian- spy-agencys-android-hacking-operations/ The Intel Community's Harrowing Take https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29 158 on Our Futures 583/for-u-s-intelligence-threats-cloud-the- horizon-in-global-trends-2040 Not Just For SOF Anymore: Envisioning https://mwi.usma.edu/not-just-for-sof-anymore- 159 Irregular Warfare As A Joint Force envisioning-irregular-warfare-as-a-joint-force- Priority priority/ Winning The AI-Enabled War-At-Sea https://cimsec.org/winning-the-ai-enabled-war- 160 at-sea/ COVID NEWS 13 million vaccine doses to arrive before https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/22 161 midyear /2092876/13-million-vaccine-doses-arrive- midyear ICUs At ‘High, Critical Risk’ Utilization https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/04/22/icus- 162 Rate In Five Luzon Regions; 9,277 at-high-critical-risk-utilization-rate-in-five-luzon- New Covid-19 Cases Logged regions-9277-new-covid-19-cases-logged/ https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137540 163 Take Ivermectin ‘at your own risk’: Palace exec warns public Why limiting AstraZeneca, Johnson & https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health- Johnson coronavirus vaccines over environment/article/3130347/why-limiting- 164 blood clot fears could do more harm astrazeneca-johnson-johnson-coronavirus than good Chinese expert rails against Tedros https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ 165 and Wuhan lab leak theory on state article/3130470/coronavirus-chinese-expert- media rails-against-tedros-and-wuhan-lab Indian capital running out of medical https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india- 166 oxygen as pandemic surges reports-daily-rise-covid-19-cases-259170- 2021-04-20/ What you need to know about the https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health- coronavirus right now coronavirus-snapshot/what-you-need-to-know- 167 about-the-coronavirus-right-now- idUSKBN2C30HF

Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020- 168 Across the World coronavirus-cases-world- map/?srnd=coronavirus Covid map: Where are cases the https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105 169 highest?

J. OPINION/EDITORIAL/COMMENTARY Title Link 170 Virtual surrender of WPS to China? https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2021/04/22/2 092938/virtual-surrender-wps-china 171 Words matter https://manilastandard.net/opinion/editorial/352 484/words-matter.html 172 The China factor In Palaweños’ https://manilastandard.net/opinion/columns/bu rejection of partition siness-class-by-rudy-romero/352495/the- china-factor-in-palawe-os-rejection-of- partition.html) 173 Why Chinese fishermen are in the WPS https://opinion.inquirer.net/139537/why- chinese-fishermen-are-in-the-wps 174 Ganging up on a good thing https://opinion.inquirer.net/139535/ganging-up- on-a-good-thing 175 We need evidence-based policies and https://opinion.inquirer.net/139552/we-need- approaches, and fewer generals evidence-based-policies-and-approaches-and- fewer-generals 176 Race of heroes (2) https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/04/22/rac e-of-heroes-2/

177 China’s deceitful expansion tactics https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/ar chives/2021/04/22/2003756125 178 US fails to understand that it no longer https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/US-fails-to- calls the shots in Asia understand-that-it-no-longer-calls-the-shots-in- Asia 179 US’ distorted view of the China threat https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article risks creating a cold war nightmare /3130308/us-distorted-view-china-threat-risks- creating-cold-war-nightmare 180 Threat of Chinese sanctions tests https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Thr Japan's resolve on Taiwan eat-of-Chinese-sanctions-tests-Japan-s- resolve-on-Taiwan 181 The Taiwan risk gorilla kicks Kim to https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/The-Taiwan- Asia's sidelines risk-gorilla-kicks-Kim-to-Asia-s-sidelines 182 Taking stock of EU's Indo-Pacific https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04- strategy 21/Taking-stock-of-EU-s-Indo-Pacific-strategy- ZDuEdc3wPu/index.html 183 Digital Authoritarianism With Russian https://carnegie.ru/2021/04/21/digital- Characteristics authoritarianism-with-russian-characteristics- pub-84346 184 Fukushima waste water plan won’t win https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article public confidence, no matter how hard /3130239/fukushima-waste-water-plan-wont- Japan tries win-public-confidence-no-matter-how 185 Moving Towards A Sustainable Future https://adrinstitute.org/2021/04/21/adri-vthd- Through ESG” moving-towards-a-sustainable-future-through- esg/

Anti-Duterte groups told to enjoy freedom of expression Romina Cabrera (The Philippine Star ) - April 22, 2021 - 12:00am MANILA, Philippines — National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. has urged groups calling for the resignation of President Duterte and other government officials to enjoy their freedom of expression.

Esperon said they are aware that groups like Duterte Resign have gathered 32,000 signatures and that the the government respects their ideas and opinions.

“It is very possible that there are other groups. We are aware of another group, calling itself Resign. We know it’s primarily a movement of those identified with the leftist and some oppositionists,” Esperon said yesterday at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay virtual forum.

He downplayed the supposed existence of the “Viber 500,” a group of active and retired military officials supposedly calling for the withdrawal of support from the President due to inaction on issues regarding the West Philippine Sea.

Esperon said there are outspoken military men who discuss politics on social media platforms, but they were just misinterpreted to be going against Duterte.

“It may be. When you talk about politics and talk about candidates, then you may run into discussions that are not favorable to the current administration,” he said.

“If they have a membership of 500, what is 500. We respect their ideas and their opinions, 500 is 500. What do you think about the 82 percent approval rating of the President? How many voters compared to the votes of the President,” he added.

Esperon said the administration is not oblivious to signs calling to improve the government’s service delivery.

“There may be legitimate issues and we will look into those. But we are not thinking that because there are 32,000 objections, we are an ineffective government.” Militant groups will mark Labor Day with protests to press for the resignation of Duterte among other demands.

Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) chair Elmer Labog said workers and other sectors are preparing to take to the streets and amplify the people’s demands.

Calls for Duterte’s resignation and removal from power, Labog said, are legitimate.

“Duterte’s resignation is a demand of the people, an urgent relief from the darkness that looms in our country,” he stressed.

“We vow to serve the people at all times and it is criminal for activists not to listen to concrete demands of the people,” Labog said. – Mayen Jaymalin

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/22/2092864/anti-duterte-groups-told-enjoy-freedom- expression

‘Bising’ maintains strength while it begins to move away from Luzon

Published April 21, 2021, 11:45 PM by Ellalyn De Vera-Ruiz “Bising” (international name “Surigae”) has maintained its strength and was already over the Philippine Sea east of Babuyan Islands on Wednesday evening, April 21.

In its 11 p.m. severe weather bulletin, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) located the center of the eye of typhoon “Bising” at 340 kilometers east of Aparri, Cagayan around 10 p.m.

Moving north at 15 kph, Bising maintained its maximum sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour (kph) and gustiness of up to 205 kph.

Signal No. 1 remains hoisted over Batanes, eastern portion of Cagayan (Santa Ana, Gonzaga, Lal-Lo, Gattaran, Baggao, Peñablanca, Camalaniugan, Buguey, Aparri, Santa Teresita, Alcala, Amulung, Iguig, Tuguegarao City) including Babuyan Islands, and eastern portion of Isabela (San Pablo, Maconacon, Divilacan, Tumauini, Cabagan, Palanan, Dinapigue, San Guillermo, Benito Soliven, San Mariano, Ilagan, Gamu, Naguilian).

PAGASA said these areas may still experience gusty winds due to typhoon Bising.

In the next 24 hours, PAGASA said the northeasterly wind flow enhanced by Bising will also bring strong breeze to near-gale conditions with higher gusts over the coastal and mountainous areas of Ilocos Region, Apayao, Abra, and the western portion of Cagayan.

Bising and the enhanced northeasterly surface wind flow may also trigger rough to high seas over the northern and eastern seaboards of Northern Luzon with wave heights reaching up to 2.5-9.0 meters (m).

“Sea travel is risky for all types of seacrafts over these waters,” PAGASA advised.

Rough to very rough seas will likewise prevail over the eastern coastlines of Central and Southern Luzon (2.5-5.0 m) and rough seas over the western seaboard of Northern Luzon (2.5-4.0 m), which could be dangerous for small boats. Typhoon Bising is expected to continue to move generally north or north-northeast until Thursday evening, April 22, away from the Luzon landmass before turning east-northeast by Friday, April 23, and eastward by Saturday, April 24.

Bising will likely leave the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) by Sunday morning, April 25.

PAGASA said Bising will gradually weaken throughout the forecast period and could be downgraded into a severe tropical storm by Friday and a tropical storm by Saturday.

Bising will likely be at 410 km east of Basco, Batanes by Thursday evening; 855 km east- northeast of extreme northern Luzon by Friday evening; 1,260 km east of extreme northern Luzon by Saturday evening; and 2,000 km east-northeast of extreme northern Luzon or outside the PAR by Sunday evening.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/bising-maintains-strength-while-it-begins-to-move-away-from-luzon/

Analyst: Duterte doesn't care about the West Philippine Sea ABS-CBN News Posted at Apr 21 2021 01:49 PM | Updated as of Apr 21 2021 02:09 PM

President talks to the people after holding a meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) core members at the Arcadia Active Lifestyle Center in Matina, on March 8, 2021. Richard Madelo, Presidential Photo MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte's alleged inaction and silence on China's frequent incursion in the West Philippine Sea show he doesn't care about the resource-rich waters, an analyst said Wednesday.

"Five years into the Duterte presidency, I have trouble believing he's playing some kind of deeper 3-dimensional chess game the rest of us don't understand," Greg Poling, director of Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative-Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ANC.

"I think that he said the exact same thing since July 1, 2016 and that we should all just take him in his word. He doesn't care about the West Philippine Sea. He just said he doesn't care about the fish."

In a televised public address Monday, Duterte said it would lead to war if the Philippines asserts its rights in areas being claimed by China in the West Philippine Sea.

He said he would only deploy military ships should China go after oil and mineral resources in the area.

"We do not send gray ships to --- mga war ships diyan --- na para ipakita lang natin sa Pilipino na maski na ilang balik natin doon, wala talagang mangyari because we are not in the possession of the sea. Sa kanila eh," Duterte said.

(We do not send gray ships to, war ships there, just to show something to , but no matter how frequent we return there, nothing will happen because we are not in the possession of the sea. They have it.)

Despite China's assertive maritime agenda in the area, Poling said Duterte's "not going to suddenly change who he is."

"He's not gonna change his opinion on China or on the US. The best that can be hope for those who want a stronger policy on West Philippine Sea is that he will just kind of stay out of the way of the DND (Department of National Defense), AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs)," he said.

Manila's top diplomat and defense chief have demanded Beijing for weeks to pull out its ships monitored to be in Philippine waters since early March. Duterte did not speak about the issue until Monday.

On Tuesday, Duterte's spokesman, Harry Roque, said there is a status quo on the maritime disputes with China because the Philippines has no military power to take back the seized features, including some artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea.

"Modus vivendi na lang po tayo ‘no, na nakaukit naman sa papel kung ano iyong ating karapatan. At bagama’t hindi natin napapatupad ito ay hindi naman mabubura ng Tsina iyan," said Roque.

(It's modus vivendi for us. But our rights are already assured on paper. But while we cannot enforce those, China cannot erase the same.)

"It’s not the Philippines saying, we cannot enforce it. It’s just the nature of international law sa ngayon na wala tayong (now that there is no) enforcement mechanism when it comes to arbitral awards," he added.

For Poling, inaction on the West Philippine Sea issue threatens the livelihood of Filipino fishermen and food security of millions of Filipinos.

The West Philippine Sea is the Philippines' exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, a major trade route that is also believed to hold valuable oil and gas deposits.

"The South China Sea is the most productive fishing ground on the planet. An estimated 12 percent of all the fish in the world are caught in the South China Sea. Mostly, they are caught by small-scale fisher boats from the Philippines and from Vietnam," Poling said.

"Certainly, what China is doing is taking the livelihood away from the tens of thousands of Filipino fishers who have been operating these waters for generations and threatening the food security of millions of Filipino citizens."

Retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio challenged Duterte to speak up against China's incursions in the West Philippine Sea, saying China is not listening to his alter egos.

"China will listen only to the leader of the nation. If the President is silent, then China will continue," said Carpio, who was part of the Philippine team that argued the country's rights in the West Philippine Sea before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

While Duterte speaking out would not guarantee that Chinese vessels would leave, the "Chinese will take us seriously."

"They will feel the heat because they will lose a friend if the President will speak," Carpio said. Beijing claims the South China Sea in entirety despite having no legal basis, as adjudged by the UN-backed arbitration court in 2016.

Duterte forged friendlier relations with China when he assumed power in 2016, temporarily setting aside the maritime disputes in favor of economic aid and investments.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/21/21/analyst-duterte-doesnt-care-about-the-west-philippine-sea

Philippines to deal with China incursion with own assets, says Esperon

Published April 21, 2021 5:42pm

The Philippines will deal with the presence of Chinese warships and militia boats in the West Philippine Sea with its own military assets and patrol forces,National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said on Wednesday.

Esperon made the remark a day after Ambassador to Washington Babe Romualdez said the US was waiting for the Philippines to ask for its assistance amid the incursion of the Chinese vessels in the country's waters. forces , Coast Guard, Bureau of Fisheries, as well as militar at“This the isKapihan something sa Manila we would Bay. like to address by the deployment of our patrol y assets,” Esperon said Citing the pronouncement of his counterpart White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Esperon said the US was reiterating the Mutual Defense Treaty.

on where we're about to be in a shooting

“I think we’re not in that kind of situati Hewar said with he Chinese did not forces think thatin the the area,” US can Esperon actually said. drive away the Chinese vessels any from the West Philippine Sea. “We don’t think they would be able to drive away On Tuesday,body there.” Romualdez said the US was waiting for the Philippines to ask for help in removing the Chinese vessels from the Philippine waters.

Romualdez did not give specific details, but he cited correspondence between the defense departments of the two countries and the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group to the South China Sea, a portion of which is being claimed by the Philippines.

"We were working round the clock, so to speak, in terms of being able to navigate

or making sure that there’s the freedom of the seas, and code of conduct that "Atwe’re the pushing," same time, Romualdez the United said. States is obviously waiting for us to call them if we need their assistance in removing or asking the vessels that are parked in our area of responsibility or economic zone [to leave the area]. And both our Philippine Navy and added.

On March 7, around 220the USvessels Navy were are working spotted onnear this,” the heJulian Felipe Reef, located 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Palawan and part of the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The National Task Force WPS reported that 240 Chinese militia vessels were scattered in Philippine territorial waters off Kalayaan in Palawan and are within the Philippines' EEZ. Aside from these, six vessels of the Chinese navy, including at least three warships, have been spotted in the WPS.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had demanded for the immediate removal of the Chinese vessels from the Julian Felipe Reef. the reef, which they claimed was part of Ch e SouthThe Chinese China Sea.Embassy claimed that the vessels were only “seeking shelter” near ina’s Nansha Islands or Spratlys in th China has been insisting ownership over nearly the entire South China Sea a claim debunked by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in July 2016 following a lawsuit filed by the Philippines. —

The Philippines filed diplomatic protests over the presence of Chinese vessels. -- NB, GMA News

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/784626/philippines-to-deal-with-china-incursion- with-own-assets-says-esperon/story/

Esperon tells Filipino fishermen: Go out and fish in West PH Sea

Published April 21, 2021, 2:47 PM by Martin Sadongdong National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. urged on Wednesday, April 21, Filipino fishermen to go out and fish in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) as he assured that military, coast guard, and fisheries assets are deployed in the area to protect them from any foreign harassments.

(PCOO / MANILA BULLETIN) Esperon, chairman of the National Task Force (NTF) for WPS, issued the call as reports reached him that fisherfolk in Bataan were prevented from casting their nets in Scarborough Shoal (Panatag Shoal/Bajo de Masinloc). Scarborough Shoal is adjacent to the Luzon Sea and Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) which are all part of the WPS.

“Bataan folks, you are encouraged to go out and fish. We have deployed Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) assets as well as Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) assets,” he said in a virtual Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.

Data from the NTF-WPS, stated that there were at least five Filipino fishing vessels in the Scarborough Shoal as of April 19.

“There is no prohibition for us. That is a traditional fishing ground as ruled by the arbitral ruling,” Esperon stressed, referring to the 2016 landmark ruling by the Permanent court of Arbitration (PCA) which ruled in favor of the Philippines’ claims against China’s in the South China Sea.

In 2012, a standoff between the Philippines and China happened in Scarborough Shoal. To maintain the stability in the region, American and other foreign negotiators encouraged both forces to withdraw from the tense shoal. The Philippines did but China did not.

“After we folded out from the Scarborough Shoal in 2012 upon the prodding of negotiators, China has never left the area,” said Esperon.

However, he clarified that Scarborough Shoal was identified as a traditional fishing ground in the PCA ruling so Filipino fishermen can still cast out their nets in the area. “We do not have a detachment there and China has no structures but they have coast guard and maritime militias. There are three Chinese Coast Guard [vessels] and two Chinese maritime militia [vessels] but we have our own Filipino fishing boats,” Esperon said.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/esperon-tells-filipino-fishermen-go-out-and-fish-in-west-ph-sea/

Philippines sends more ships to West Philippine Sea

(Philstar.com) - April 21, 2021 - 9:57pm MANILA, Philippines — A government task force on Wednesday said more maritime assets were deployed to the West Philippine Sea amid reports of Chinese vessels in the area.

This move aims to "sustain our sovereignty patrols, increase safety of life at sea operations" and intensify crackdown against illegal and unregulated fishing, according to the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea.

It came more than a month since Chinese fishing vessels were spotted in the Julian Felipe Reef, which have remained there despite the Philippines filing diplomatic protests.

"The foregoing whole-of-nation approach to protect our national interest in the WPS manifests the firm rejection of the Philippine Government of any attempt to undermine the 2016 Arbitral Award," the statement read. "We are exhausting all means possible to protect our territory and EEZ."

Assets sent were four Philippine Coast Guard vessels and an aircraft, five Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessels, as well as high-speed tactical watercraft and rubber boats of the Philippine National Police's Maritime Group.

Constructions in detachments are also underway to strengthen the country's position in its waters.

A P1.1-billion sheltered port and beaching ramp were put up on Pag-asa Island and an airstrip there is being rehabilitated. The NTF said this will improve the delivery of goods, transport of people and services, and boost investments in fisheries and tourism.

Facilities for ceullar and data connection to the island's residents were also done by a telecommunications company, while the Department of Information and Communications Technology is constructing a facility for Wi-Fi coverage.

The task force said too that government is undertaking an P8.86 billion development program with the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development "for the environmental protection, security, safety and sustainable development in Kalayaan." "[We are] resolute in upholding Philippine sovereignty over our territory as mandated by the Constitution," it said, "and protecting our sovereign rights over our EEZ in accordance with international law."

The deploying of ships is not the first in recent weeks. By end of March, the Philippines began sending PCG and BFAR vessels with the Chinese ships yet to leave the Julian Felipe Reef.

Other countries including Asian neighbors have also denounced the presence of the vessels there.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/21/2092850/philippines-sends-more-ships-west- philippine-sea

Risa, Kiko: Probe foreign boats’ overfishing at WPS

Protecting our rights in the WPS is not just about our legal jurisdiction, but also about our country’s food security. Published 9 hours ago On April 22, 2021 02:00 AM By Sundy Locus @tribunephl_sndy

Senators have called on the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to step up and provide support for Filipino fishermen whose livelihoods were affected by the presence of Chinese militia vessels in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Senator Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday urged the BFAR to conduct an investigation over the alleged overfishing by the foreign vessels following complaints from fisherfolk in San Antonio, Zambales about their dwindling catch due to the presence of at least 20 Chinese ships in their area.

The agency, she added, should also account for the loss of profit of fishermen who cannot conduct their business freely in the contested waters.

“How much are we losing because we cannot fish freely? Protecting our rights in the WPS is not just about our legal jurisdiction, but also about our country’s food security,” Hontiveros said in a statement.

“BFAR should be able to regularly monitor these areas because we need to account for what is being stolen from us. Accurate data and information will help us to fill the shortcomings of the government to its people,” she added.

Some fishermen raised the alarm over the fleet last week saying that the ships are disturbing their fishing grounds at night. The complainants said that it significantly affected their catch as their previous earnings of P4,000 per fishing trip are now almost gone.

The Chinese vessels are stationed 111 kilometers off San Antonio, Zambales which is within the 350-kilometer Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

The Philippine Coast Guard said the area is an international nautical highway where foreign vessels frequently pass but the Zambales fishermen reported that the Chinese vessels remain stationary and have been there for four months now. Senator Francis Pangilinan aired a similar statement earlier, warning that the country is facing a “twin threat” with the presence of the foreign fleets — encroachment and possible shortage in fish supply.

“As early as now, we should heed the warning of our fishermen on the issue of their dwindling catch. We are glad that the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) takes this into account in their diplomatic protests,” he said.

“In this situation, China is not only violating our sovereignty, but it is also robbing us of income and food. Small-scale farmers and fishermen are always on the losing end. They are the poorest and almost always taken advantage of,” he added.

The lawmakers further said that the Philippines is losing billions in profits due to the presence of the foreign ships in WPS.

The DFA on 14 April fired two diplomatic protests against China after the National Task Force-WPS reported that 240 Chinese ships were found still lingering in the contested waters.

https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/04/22/risa-kiko-probe-foreign-boats-overfishing-at-wps/

BFAR urged to account for fish catch lost due to Chinese pressure in WPS

Published April 21, 2021, 10:22 AM by Hannah Torregoza The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) should investigate the overfishing perpetrated by China’s vessels in the West Philippine Sea and account for the amount of catches of fishery products that were lost to the Chinese, Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday, April 21, said.

Hontiveros said the BFAR should heed the concerns of fishermen of Zambales over the diminishing amount of their fish catch as they are forced to hold back their fishing activities due to these Chinese vessels within the country’s maritime territories.

“Protecting our rights in the WPS is not just about our legal jurisdiction, but also about our country’s food security,” Hontiveros said in a statement.

“Government should be able to allow Filipino fishers to freely conduct their business: to catch fish. Ngayon, parang pinutulan ng kabuhayan ang sarili nating kababayan (Our own people seem to have been cut off from their own livelihood),” she added.

The fishermen from Zambales have said that at least 20 Chinese vessels have been spotted 111 kilometers off San Antonio town. One fisherman said they could hear foreign shops disturbing their fishing grounds at night.

Since the Chinese vessels made their present in the area, the fishermen claimed they would get almost nothing compared to the past where they could earn P4,000 on each fishing trip.

Filipino fishermen had also reported that Chinese vessels scour and raid giant clams in the disputed areas, like Scarborough Shoal.

Hontiveros said it is imperative that the government capacitates BFAR to do its job so it can make an accounting of how much fish was lost due to the Chinese activities in the area.

“BFAR should be able to regularly monitor these areas because we need to account for what is being stolen from us. The agency must be capacitated to do its job, so that we know how much is being withheld from our fisherfolks,” she said.

“Ang totoong datos at impormasyon ay makakatulong para matugunan ang mga pagkukulang ng gobyerno sa mga Pilipino (Only true data and information can help so we can address the government’s failure to Filipinos),” she noted.

China, the senator reiterated, owes the Philippines P800-billion for the years they exploited the West Philippine Sea. “These figures were released even before the recent swarming of over 200 vessels, making it reasonable to presume that China’s debt to our country has ballooned in only the span of three months,” she said.

She appealed: “Our agencies — from the BFAR to the DND (Department of National Defense) — should work together to ensure that we defend our seas and the Filipinos’ way of living.”

“Kung kinakailangan samahan ang ating mangingisda para siguradong makapaghanapbuhay, gawin natin (If we need to accompany our fishermen to make sure they can pursue their livelihood, let’s do that),” she added.

“I am certain the costs that go along with protecting our fisherfolks is nothing compared to what we will surely lose in the long run,” the lawmaker stressed.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/bfar-urged-to-account-for-fish-catch-lost-due-to-chinese-pressure-in- wps/

DOE Takes Cue On WPS Drilling From Palace, DFA

APRIL 22, 2021 2 MINUTE READ

DOE Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi THE Department of Energy (DOE) on Wednesday said it will not allow any unauthorized party to go after oil and mineral resources in the seabed and subsoil of the West Philippine Sea.

DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi said he firmly stands behind any decision of President Duterte regarding the assertion of the exclusive licensing authority of the Philippines over petroleum and other resources in the area.

“Should any foreign state engage in petroleum activities inside the Philippine petroleum jurisdiction, the DOE shall take the necessary steps to protect our licensees and preserve our resources,” the agency said.

It shall also defer to the sole prerogative of the President regarding any security option. It shall also conform to any decision that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) might take regarding the ongoing informal negotiations on oil and gas cooperation with China.

The DOE supports the President’s statement regarding the defense of the resources of the Philippine seabed and subsoil, as this is in accordance with the Constitution and our petroleum laws. Under Philippine laws, only the government, through the DOE, may issue licenses to drill in Philippine land territory, including its islands, internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and continental shelf.

Meanwhile, the DOE continues to develop the uncontested Philippine EEZ and continental shelf through the resumption of petroleum operations by our licensees and the award of new petroleum areas. The Philippines remains in business, Covid-19 and China, notwithstanding, the DOE said.

Duterte said last Monday that he would send military ships if China starts drilling for oil and other resources in the area. His statement comes after hundreds of Chinese ships were spotted in those waters since early March. He said the Philippines cannot do anything about the Chinese presence in the country’s EEZ at present, but he gave the assurance that he is ready to fight once China starts drilling for oil.

“I am addressing myself to the Chinese government. We want to remain friends. We want to share whatever it is. Sinabi ko naman sa inyo, sa [I told you, the] Chinese government, I am not so much interested now in fishing. I don’t think there’s enough fish to quarrel about. But when we start to mine, when we start to get whatever it is in the bowels of the China Sea, our oil…. then at that time, I will send my ships there. I will send my gray ships there to stake a claim,” he said.

‘“Yan masiguro ninyo. ‘Pag kinuha na ‘yang oil, mga nickel diyan, [You can be sure of that. Once you start to get the oil, the nickel there], the precious stones, that would be the time because that is the time that we should act on it. Hindi ngayon na pahabol habulan lang diyan [Not now, when there’s only a lot of chasing going on],” he said earlier.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/04/22/doe-takes-cue-on-wps-drilling-from-palace-dfa/

Gov’t ready to protect Phl oil and gas resources in WPS—Cusi

Published 20 hours ago on April 21, 2021 03:14 PM By Maria Romero @tribunephl_mbr

The government is ready to “take necessary steps” to protect the oil and gas resources in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) amid Chinese occupancy in the area.

“The Philippines remains in business, COVID-19 and China, notwithstanding,” Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said Wednesday.

“Should any foreign state engage in petroleum activities inside the Philippine petroleum jurisdiction, the DoE shall take the necessary steps to protect our licensees and preserve our resources.”

Cusi said the DoE will “defer to the sole prerogative of the President regarding any security option” in asserting the exclusive licensing authority of the country over petroleum and other resources in the seabed and subsoil of the WPS.

“It shall also conform to any decision that the Department of Foreign Affairs might take regarding the ongoing informal negotiations on oil and gas cooperation with China,” he added.

Under the law, only the Philippine government, through the DoE, may issue licenses to drill in Philippine land territory, including its islands, internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and continental shelf.

According to Cusi, the DoE continues to develop the uncontested Philippine EEZ and continental shelf through the resumption of petroleum operations by our licensees and the award of new petroleum areas.

In October 2020, the DoE lifted the moratorium on the exploration activities in the WPS, which is anticipated to rake in an initial investment of $25 million by service contractors.

Apart from that, $78 million worth of remaining minimum investments from the service contractors could also be raised. The latest data from the DoE showed that there are about 6,048 million barrels of oil (MMBO) and 7,108 billion cubic feet of natural gas (BCF) of undiscovered resources in the WPS.

That was on top of the 155 MMBO and 5,050 BCF already discovered before the enforcement of force majeure during the Aquino administration.

Underscoring the crucial role” that the energy sector plays in the promotion of sustainability and socio-economic development, Briguez said the government needs to accelerate the development of new energy supply.

https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/04/21/govt-ready-to-protect-phl-oil-and-gas-resources-in-wps- cusi/

Mga mangingisda sa Masinloc, normal na nakakapaghanap-buhay sa ngayon

ABS-CBN News Posted at Apr 21 2021 09:50 PM MAYNILA—Sa kabila pa rin ng pananatili ng ilang Chinese vessels sa West Philippine Sea, wala namang nakikita o nararanasang problema ang mga mangingisda sa bayan ng Masinloc sa Zambales.

“So far this time po ang bayan ng Masinloc, ang mga mangingisda ay naghahanap-buhay nang maayos,” pahayag ni Mayor Arsenia Lim.

Sinabi sa TeleRadyo ni Lim, na normal ang pangingisda nila at wala namang nararanasang anumang problema sa ngayon.

Pero ayon kay Lim, ibang usapan na kapag may mang-harass sa kanilang mangingisda dahil hindi umano siya papayag na maagrabiyado ang mga ito.

“Wala naman this time. Kasi kung meron po, katulad noong una na, sinumbong ko naman agad sa Malacanang yun. Hindi po tayo papayag na maagrabiyado ang mga maliliit nating kababayan,” sabi niya.

—TeleRadyo 21 Abril 2021

https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/04/21/21/mga-mangingisda-sa-masinloc-normal-na- nakakapaghanap-buhay-sa-ngayon

Mga mangingisdang Pinoy 'di dapat matakot lumaot sa West PH Sea: DA April Rafales, ABS-CBN News Posted at Apr 21 2021 09:12 PM

MAYNILA — Suportado ng Department of Agriculture (DA) ang mga mangingisdang Pinoy sa pangingisda sa West Philippine Sea at sinigurong wala silang dapat ikatakot basta't nasa exclusive economic zone (EEZ) ng bansa.

Ito ay sa kabila ng presensya at pananakot ng mga barkong Tsino sa lugar, na hindi pa rin masawata ng pamahalaan.

Sa isang virtual press conference, sinabi ni Agriculture Undersecretary for Agri-industrialization and for Fisheries Cheryl Marie Caballero na hindi dapat matakot ang mga mangingisda basta nasa EEZ sila.

"We continue to provide support for fisher folk, ensuring their safety. Kaya ang BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources), nandiyan in partnership with Philippine Coast Guard and local government units, para sila pa rin ang makapangisda sa fishing grounds," sabi ni Caballero.

May mga reports naman aniya na nakakapangisda pa rin ang mga Pinoy fishing vessels, pero hindi pa matiyak kung gaano kadami ang kanilang nakukuha.

"Based on validated reports, minsan nangingisda sila para sa kanilang consumption. Kailangan pa i-substantiate sa mga lugar na hindi nararating ng ating fisher folk. Kailangan ma- contextualize kung gaano kadami," dagdag pa niya.

Samantala, tumaas umano ng 41.28 percent ang produksyon ng isda sa bansa mula Marso 29 hanggang kasalukuyan ng April, batay sa report na ibinigay ng Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, dahil na rin sa open fishing season.

Inaasahan anilang stable ang supply at presyo ng mga isda sa mga pamilihan dahil dito.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/21/21/mga-mangingisdang-pinoy-di-dapat-matakot-lumaot-sa- west-ph-sea-da

Four crew dead, 9 missing after cargo ship runs aground in Philippines By Reuters Staff 2 MIN READ

MANILA (Reuters) - Four crew members from a cargo ship that ran aground off the southern Philippines have died, while seven have been rescued and a search is continuing for nine others, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Wednesday.

The crew of LCT Great Ocean abandoned the vessel, which was carrying nickel ore and 2,000 litres of diesel, before it ran aground in province on Monday, the coast guard said.

The bodies of the four crew members were found after being washed onto the shore, while the seven were rescued in various parts of the southern province after reaching land, Gelly Rosales, a coast guard official, told Reuters.

Rosales said the cargo vessel was taking shelter from rough seas off another province when its anchor reportedly broke causing it to drift until it ran aground.

The weather had been rough in the area due to Typhoon Surigae, which brought winds that reached 195 km (121.17 miles) per hour, with its effects felt in many parts of the eastern Philippines.

Disaster officials reported on Wednesday that three people had died and 10 were injured and one missing, in communities hit by strong winds, while tens of thousands remained in evacuation centres. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-storm-philippines/four-crew-dead-9-missing-after-cargo-ship- runs-aground-in-philippines-idUSKBN2C80XP Coast Guard restores oldest working lighthouse in Batangas

Published April 21, 2021, 12:01 PM by Richa Noriega The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has successfully completed the restoration of the oldest working lighthouse in Batangas.

PCG District Southern Tagalog Commander Commodore Tito Andal said the historic Faro de Cabo Santiago or Cape Santiago Lighthouse was the oldest lighthouse in Batangas and one of the oldest working lighthouses in the Philippines.

GOOD NEWS: PCG RESTORES CAPE SANTIAGO LIGHTHOUSE IN BATANGAS Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Commandant, Admiral George V…

“It stands on top of a 41-foot cliff by the shore of Calatagan and serves as a guide for ships passing through the Verde Island Passage and entering Manila Bay,” Andal said.

The Cape Santiago lighthouse was modeled after Europe’s medieval castles by Spanish engineer Guillermo Brockman in 1887. It was inaugurated and lit on Dec. 15, 1890.

Despite the challenges of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the PCG District Southern Tagalog made initial restorations on the run-down lighthouse last October 2020. It was declared restored to normal operations effective on Thursday, April 15.

Several vintage pieces of the Coast Guard were on display in Cape Santiago Lighthouse, such as an old PCG helicopter and some Spanish-era light station lanterns and photos.

“This is something that we Coast Guardians and our families would be proud of and further give value knowing that the light which illuminates from it would not just be a symbol of hope for mariners and fishermen, but will be a bastion of protection of our heritage — a history that humbly began as a Lighthouse Service and through the waves of time, evolved to become the premier maritime agency of the country,” PCG Station Batangas Commander Captain Geronimo Tuvilla said.

Lighthouses are considered an effective navigational aid, which are vital to fishermen and mariners, as they guide them to safely navigate the rivers and seas, especially at night.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/coast-guard-restores-oldest-working-lighthouse-in-batangas/

Duterte offers to resign if former military generals in Cabinet get involved in corruption

Published April 21, 2021, 1:41 PM by Genalyn Kabiling President Duterte intends to resign alongside any former military official in his Cabinet if he — or anyone of them — gets entangled with corruption.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte talks to the people after holding a meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) core members at the Malacañang Golf (Malago) Clubhouse in Malacañang Park, Manila on April 19, 2021. (KING RODRIGUEZ / PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO / FILE PHOTO)

But so far, the President is convinced that his Cabinet members, who previously served in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), remained corruption-free. Duterte is even satisfied with the performance of these retired military officers in his official family.

“Tingnan mo ang DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) wala ng reklamo, wala ng corruption, DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) ganoon. Tapos magtanong kayo, eh bakit military? Hindi naman lahat military. Tingnan — gusto ko lang ‘yong talagang matapang na sinusunod (Look at the DILG, there is no complaint, no corruption. Same with DSWD. Then you ask why the military? Not all of them are military. I just want really brave people who follow),” Duterte said in a televised address Monday, April 19.

“Hanggang ngayon wala akong narinig kasi kung mayroon, sabay kaming mag-resign, sa totoo lang (Up to now, I have not heard of anything because if there is, we will both resign actually),” he said.

Duterte earlier said he preferred former military men in key government posts since they get the job done fast and without complaints. He previously complained of the tendency of some civilian public servants to drag their feet in performing a task.

In his remarks Monday, Duterte defended anew his appointment of former military officials in key government posts, citing they are fast and efficient in completing tasks.

“Kung mag-asa ako sa sibilyan, patay ang sibilyan. Kaya always, if I want things done, military talaga ‘yan (If I rely on civilians, we’re dead. So always, if I want things done, I rely on the military),” he said. “If ‘pag may ano, it’s either Año or si Rolly, ‘Gawin mo nga ‘to.’ (If there’s something that needs to be done, it’s either Año o Rolly. ‘Please do this’) and it will be done, walang corruption (no corruption),” he added.

Duterte was referring to Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año and Social Welfare Secretary Rolando Bautista.

Año, a member of the Philippine Military Class of 1983, served as military chief before joining the Duterte Cabinet in 2018.

Bautista was the Army chief prior to this DSWD appointment in the same year. The former Presidential Security Group commander graduated from the PMA in 1985.

Among the former military officials in the Duterte Cabinet are Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, Presidential Adviser for Peace Process and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Information and Communications Secretary Gregorio Honasan II, and Housing Secretary Eduardo del Rosario.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/duterte-offers-to-resign-if-former-military-generals-in-cabinet-get- involved-in-corruption/

Senators push to defund NTF-ELCAC amid red-tagging issue By CNN Philippines Staff Published Apr 22, 2021 5:42:36 AM

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 22) — Following alleged red-tagging of community pantry organizers, senators are pushing to defund the national anti- communist task force next year.

In a tweet, Senator Joel Villanueva said the government should stop allocating public funds to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and should just “reallocate the current ₱19 billion budget” for financial aid.

This is in response to the statement made by NTF-ELCAC spokesperson Gen. Antonio Parlade against Ana Patricia Non, the organizer of the Maginhawa community pantry, wherein he compared the latter to Satan.

To recall, the NTF-ELCAC was given a ₱19-billion budget this year despite criticisms on the agency’s intensified red-tagging activities. Bulk of this will be spent to implement infrastructure projects and support barangays that were cleared of insurgency threats.

Responding to the tweet, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said he agrees and said, “if these are the kind of people who will spend hard earned taxpayer's money, then it's not worth it.”

In an interview with CNN Philippines’ News Night, Senator Nancy Binay said it is - for the following year, adding that the priority should not be communist problems but pandemic response. “high time” to review the budget of the said task force Recently, many Filipinos have started the initiative to open up a community pantry to help fellow residents in their respective communities. However, organizers have been subject to alleged red-tagging by anti-communist task force officers.

Senators and local chief executives have expressed their support for the community pantries amid this security issue.

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/4/22/senators-push-to-defund-ntf-elcac.html Anti-terror body to name 25 Reds as terrorists Romina Cabrera (The Philippine Star ) - April 22, 2021 - 12:00am MANILA, Philippines — The Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) will declare as terrorists at least 25 members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said.

The ATC yesterday started vetting personalities to be declared as terrorists as provided under Resolution 17, Esperon said.

The resolution will identify members of the CPP-NPA central committee, likely including its founding chairman Jose Maria Sison.

“Today we are vetting the personalities and would most likely confine them to the members of the central committee. Twenty-five personalities. We know there are alternate members but we are not yet including them in the initial list of personalities,” he said.

In December the ATC signed Resolution 12 designating the CPP and its armed wing, the NPA, as a terrorist organization following the collapse of the peace talks meant to end the country’s insurgency problem.

ATC Resolution 12, dated Dec. 9 2020, stated that it found probable cause that the CPP-NPA committed or conspired to commit terror acts as provided under Republic Act 11479 or the Anti- Terrorism Act of 2020.

Esperon last year said that supposed “legal fronts” of the CPP may also be implicated following the terrorist tag.

The ATC also met to pass Resolution 16, which declares individuals affiliated with local terrorist groups as terrorists.

These terror groups include the Islamic State East Asia, Maute group and Daulah Islamiyah.

Once declared terrorist, an individual or organization will be subjected to the authority of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, which will freeze their property or money.

The ATC is mandated to post and publish in a newspaper the list of groups or individuals tagged as terrorists.

A request for delisting may be filed before the ATC within 15 days from publication of the list.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/22/2092898/anti-terror-body-name-25-reds-terrorists

House inquiry into red-tagging of community pantry organizers sought

Published April 21, 2021, 3:46 PM by Hannah Torregoza Party-list solons on Wednesday, April 21, have filed a resolution seeking a congressional inquiry into the alleged harassment, profiling and red-tagging of community pantry volunteers and organizers.

(ALI VICOY / MANILA BULLETIN)

House Resolution No. 1723 was filed by Bayan Muna Representatives Carlos Zarate, Ferdinand Gaite, and Eufemia Cullamat; ACT Teachers’ Party-list Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Sarah Jane Elago.

The lawmakers directed their appeal for an investigation to the House Committee on Human Rights.

They pointed out that even the Executive Department has acknowledged and hailed the setting up of the community pantries to provide aid to poor citizens during this time of a coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“Members of Congress, as representatives of the people, are duty-bound to ensure that the Constitutional right of the people are protected and upheld,” the lawmakers said in the resolution.

“The organizers and volunteers who initiated the delivery of aid to the less privilege, do not d eserve to be subjected to harassment and baseless accusations from the government itself that failed to deliver such services to the Filipino people,” they added.

Gaite, in a separate statement, noted that despite being criticized, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and Lorraine Badoy still continue to attack such initiatives despite Malacanang ’s approval of the community pantries.

He said this only strengthens their demand for the abolition of the anti-insurgency task force and realigning its P19-billion budget to social amelioration programs.

“Threatening community pantries and its organizers shows that the Duterte administration is threatened by the power of the people to show solidarity to one another amid its failures and demand for better solutions to the worsening crisis in the country,” Gaite said.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/house-inquiry-into-red-tagging-of-community-pantry-organizers- sought/

Panelo backs ‘probability’ Reds taking advantage of pantries

April 21, 2021, 5:46 pm

MANILA – Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo on Wednesday said the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) should be allowed to do its mandate, citing “probability” that communist terrorist groups (CTGs) may use community pantries to raise funds for their operations in the country.

This, after acknowledging concerns raised by the NTF-ELCAC that community pantries may be used by groups linked to the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army (CPP- NPA).

“Hayaan niyo na. ‘Yun naman ang trabaho nila para suriin. Kasi meron naman talagang probilidad na magagamit ng mga komunista ito (Just let them be. It’s their job to look into this. There is really a probability that they may be used by communists),” Panelo said in his online commentary show “Counterpoint.”

He, however, allayed fears over the safety of community pantry organizers, saying only those who are actually part of leftist groups should fear for their safety.

“Pagdating naman ho sa red-tagging, yung kanilang profiling, huwag niyo na ho alalahanin ‘yan. Kasi kung kayo naman, yung mga nag-organize… e talagang wala naman kayong dapat na ipangamba na kayo’y miyembro ng ganito o ganyan. Tuloy niyo lang ‘yan. Maganda ho ‘yan (When it comes to red-tagging or profiling, don’t worry about it. Because you have nothing to fear if you’re not a member of this or that. Just continue. That’s a good initiative),” he added.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

Panelo added that organizers need not to apply for permit before putting up community pantries to help those in need of food and other essentials amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) earlier said it is up to officials to determine whether to impose permit requirements for community pantry organizers.

He said it is enough for organizers to give their local officials a head’s up about their plans so that they could be assisted in terms of implementing minimum health and safety standards.

“Yung mga permit-permit, hindi naman kailangan ng permit. Actually, ang kailangan lang diyan, siguro ipaalam mo lang para alam ng munispyo at ng city hall na ikaw ay nandiyan, eto yung gagawin mo at padalhan ka ng mga tutulong sa iyo upang mapanatili yung kaayusan (Permits are not necessary. Actually, all you need is to inform your municipality or city hall about what you’re doing so they can send help in maintaining order),” he said in his online commentary show “Counterpoint.”

DILG Undersecretary Martin Diño earlier asserted the need for a permit before setting up community pantries to prevent overcrowding.

DILG spokesperson Jonathan Malaya later clarified that barangays should not compel organizers to apply for permits.

Malacañang said President Rodrigo Duterte wants officials of the NTF-ELCAC to refrain from impeding efforts being carried out by organizers of community pantries.

Panelo said the government encourages setting up community pantries, noting that Filipinos are naturally helpful.

He said that showing love and concern for fellow Filipinos is the “essence of being a Christian.”

“Kung kayo ay Kristiyano, ‘yun ang esensya ng pagkaka-Kristiyano niyo, magiging mapagmahal at mapagmalasakit kayo sa inyong kapwa. Di ba sabi ni Kristo (If you are a Christian, that is the essence of being a Christian, being loving and having concern for others. Didn’t Christ say), what you do to the least of your brothers or sisters, you do unto me,” he said.

Community pantries have sprouted across the country amid the government’s ongoing distribution of assistance to 22.9 million low-income individuals or families affected by the two-week enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) imposed in the National Capital Region Plus (NCR plus) area from March 29 to April 11 to contain surge of Covid-19 cases.

A total of PHP23 billion was allotted as aid for residents of NCR Plus area composed of Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal.

Each qualified resident may receive cash or in-kind assistance of PHP1,000 each or up to a maximum of PHP4,000 for a family.

The DILG earlier announced that the aid distribution has been extended to May 15 to provide local officials enough time to rollout aid utilizing different schemes such as house-to-house distribution, automated financial system, or designated public distribution points. (PNA)

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137561

Parlade likens community pantry to Satan’s apple

Published April 21, 2021, 7:52 PM by Martin Sadongdong For Army Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade, the community pantry that was set up to help poor people who were severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic is like an apple that Lucifer or Satan, in a form of snake, had offered to Eve.

General Antonio Parlade Jr. (PCOO / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) So who represents Satan then?

“Isang tao lang ‘yan ‘di ba? Si Ana, si Patricia. Same with Satan. Si Satan binigyan ng apple si Eve. Doon lang nagsimula ‘yon (She did it alone right? That Ana Patricia? [It’s the] same with Satan. Satan gave an apple to Eve. It started from there),” Parlade said in an interview over One News on TV5 Tuesday, April 20.

Parlade was referring to Ana Patricia Non, the organizer of the first community pantry on Maginhawa Street in which served as the inspiration for other people to set up their own in various parts of the country.

On Tuesday, Non had to temporarily suspend the operation of the community pantry she initiated after she was red-tagged, or branded as having links or a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines-new People’s Army (CPP-NPA). The alleged red-tagging was posted on the Facebook page of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and was shared by some individuals and groups that include the Quezon City Police District.

Aside from being the commanding general of the Southern Luzon Command, Parlade also serves as one of the spokespersons of the NTF-ELCAC, an anti-communist insurgency task force which was repeatedly criticized before for red-tagging spree.

Parlade was also quoted saying on Tuesday, April 20, that the community pantries could be used by the CPP-NPA to urge people to revolt against the government.

Parlade, however, said they support community initiatives that are meant to help the people affected by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

However, he noted that it is part of their job to “expose” individuals who are exploiting the community pantry movement to advance their alleged political agenda by supposedly making the government look bad.

“We did not red-tag anybody. We do not use that term because we do not believe it,” Parlade insisted. The military official claimed that he received messages saying that Non was linked to 26- year-old activist Chad Booc, who was arrested with in a police operation in Cebu last February 15 on the allegation that he was a “communist child warrior.”

“This person [Ana Patricia Non], I personally don’t know her but I’ve been receiving messages that she was in talks with Chad Booc to put up Alcadev schools, this is her background,” Parlade said.

“We are looking if there’s a connection on the sudden emergence of these [community pantries] in the entire Philippines. It started on April 14 and in a matter of days, there are a lot of them who copied it. It’s all over the country with a similar theme, it looks like it was packaged with the same strategy,” he said.

Non had said that she started the community pantry initiative to help her neighbors on Maginhawa Street in Quezon City. The pantry is loaded with basic necessities such as food, medicines, and personal hygiene products where residents can get them for free while well- meaning individuals can donate supply.

Due to the positive impact it had on the society, more than 300 community pantries were opened up across the country to help those who are in need.

In a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Non acknowledged that the government’s apparent lack of support to communities amid the pandemic inspired her to help the people “in my own little way.”

She also denied being a part of any communist group.

After the Maginhawa community pantry stopped its operations on Tuesday due to red- tagging and profiling of state forces, Non continued the initiative on Wednesday.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/parlade-likens-community-pantry-to-satans-apple/

'We're just checking': Parlade denies 'profiling' community pantry organizers ABS-CBN News Posted at Apr 21 2021 09:04 AM | Updated as of Apr 21 2021 09:38 AM

Residents take canned goods and other items from a community pantry set up at the corner of Panorama and Waco Street in Barangay Conception Dos, Marikina City on April 18, 2021 Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News MANILA - The spokesperson of the country's anti-insurgency task force denied Wednesday that authorities profiled organizers of community pantries.

The Maginhawa community pantry on Tuesday stopped its operation after Quezon City Police and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) shared social media posts accusing community pantries of propaganda.

"We’re just checking kung ano ang ginagawa, anong sitwasyon sa community pantries na ito kasi hindi naman lahat ng community pantries ay initiated by one group or one individual," NTF- ELCAC spokesperson Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. told ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.

(We're just checking what they're doing, what's the situation in these community pantries because not all of these are organized by one group or individual.)

"We've been checking all around the country, may community pantries na-find out na organized by the LGUs (local government units)."

(There are community pantries we found out were organized by LGUs.)

Parlade, commander of the Armed Forces' Southern Luzon Command, said the task force "checked" community pantries on its own as it was the government's mandate.

"Walang kailangan mag-utos sa'min kasi mandate 'yan ng AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), ng mga ahensiya ng gobyerno. Kailangan i-check may clearance, kung sumusunod ba sa policies," he said.

(No one has to order us because that's the mandate of the AFP, of government agencies. We have to check if there's clearance, if they are following policies.)

"We've checked Bicol, Mindoro, so far wala naman nakitang problema (we did not see any problem)."

The task force had received messages from netizens about placards with hashtags "#StopKillingFarmers," Parlade said.

"As much as possible tumulong na lang, 'wag nang samahan ng politika, ng propaganda. Many of these pantries are doing exactly that," he said. (As much as possible, just help people. Don't politicize it, don't include propaganda.)

For his part, Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said all groups including leftist organizations such as Bayan Muna can set up their own community pantries without interference from government.

"The community pantry is an act of kindness. It has been a tradition and part of Filipino spirit and culture, which is called bayanihan. It is very important especially during times of disaster," he said in a separate interview on ANC's Matters of Fact.

"If Bayan or Bayan Muna or any of these left-wing groups would like to conduct their own community pantries, there would be no problem. Whatever they say during those community pantries, if they put up signs, are part of protected speech."

However, he also pointed out that it would be better not to politicize community pantries. "If you put politics, it reduces it to propaganda actions," he said.

Ana Patricia Non, organizer of the first community pantry in Maginhawa, said she would just focus on distributing goods to the public.

Non earlier said 3 policemen had asked for her contact number and asked to which organization she belonged to.

"Starting today gusto po namin sana na magfocus tayo dun sa community pantry. Mas madaming sumusuporta naman po kesa bumabatikos. Ayaw ko po ibuhos ang energy ko sa mga taong hindi nakakaintindi," she told ABS-CBN News.

(Starting today we just want to focus on the community pantry. There are more supporters than critics. I don't want to spend my energy on people who don't understand.)

"Kung may doubts pa po ang tao sa community pantry, bisita po sila sa kahit saang community pantry sa Pilipinas kasi hindi lang po dito ang umaani ng supporta, 120 na po ang community pantries sa buong Pilipinas."

(If there are still doubts, they can visit any community pantry in the country, because ours is not the only one gaining support. There are now 120 community pantries nationwide.)

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/21/21/were-just-checking-parlade-rejects-profiling-community- pantry-organizers

Parlade downplays chilling effect caused by background checks on community pantries By JOVILAND RITA, GMA News Published April 21, 2021 4:56pm

Government anti-insurgency task force spokesperson Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr. on Wednesday said pantry organizers should not be worried about authorities checking their background. because of the background of some organizers. Parlade said that the setup of community pantries had been ‘controversial’

News interview. “ Kung wala ka namang dapat ikatakot, bakit ka matakot?” Parlade said in a One [If you have nothing to be scared about, why would you be scared?]

- ect. Ikaw

“’Yan ang palaging ini insist. I really don’t know what is that chilling eff makakaramdam ng ganyan kung meron kang kinatatakot,” he added. effect. You will feel that if you have something to be scared about.] [That’s what they are always insisting. I really don’t know what is that chilling On Tuesday, Parlade, spokesperson for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, admitted that the NTF-ELCAC was checking the background of the organizers of community pantries.

Parlade claimed that some leftist groups were copying the community pantry activities from well-meaning individuals to push their propaganda.

"We're just checking itong background ng mga 'to. Yes, tsini- said. check 'yan,” Parlade [We're just checking their background. Yes, they are being checked] "Habang nandoon sila sa community, meron silang propaganda na ginagawa. May sinasabi silang gutom ang mga tao dahil sa kapalpakan ng gobyerno, kung anu-ano pa," he added.

[While they're in the community, they tell the people that there is hunger because the government failed.]

On Wednesday, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. the NTF- ELCAC would look into the possible affiliations of community pantry organizers to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). organizations that would be traced to be front organizations of the CPP- Esperon“We'll also said, look referring into the to organizers the Communist especially Party if theyof the advertised Philippines their and its armed wing, the New People's Army. NPA,”

may have other agenda, that may turn these projects into some for political and “We would also like to look into possible participation of personalities that

Onagitation Monday, purposes,” Ana Patricia he added. Non, organizer of the Maginhawa Community Pantry, said the pantry would temporarily halt their operations for the safety of its volunteers amid the alleged red-tagging by government security forces.

Organizers of similar initiatives also reported they were being asked for their personal information by government authorities.

Philippine National Police chief Police General Debold Sinas on Tuesday denied the alleged police profiling of organizers of community pantries, which sprouted recently amid the COVID-19 pandemic. -NB, GMA News

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/784618/parlade-downplays-chilling-effect-caused- by-background-checks-on-community-pantries/story/

Militant groups welcome to set up community pantries- DILG Published April 21, 2021, 11:44 AM by Chito Chavez Amid allegations of red-tagging on organizers of community pantries, an official of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said even leftist groups could set up their own since the main purpose is to help the poor amid the crisis brought by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

(ALI VICOY / MANILA BULLETIN)

But DILG Undersecretary and spokesperson Jonathan Malaya urged left-leaning organizations to just stick to the main purpose of helping instead of politicizing the act of kindness which is the real intention of the community pantries.

“Whatever they say during those community pantries are part of protected speech. We are a democratic society and people can say whatever they want,’’ Malaya said.

“However, we in the DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) would rather that people do not include politics in the community pantry. If the intention of Bayan Muna or all of these left-leaning groups is to help, just help,” he added.

Malaya stressed that adding political color to community pantries may reduce it to a propaganda action.

The DILG official noted that the department appeals to the public and organizers of the community pantry “to keep this initiative politically zero so that we do not further complicate (current health situation).’’

“We are already in a disaster and then we are ascribing politics to what should be selfless acts of kindness,’’ Malaya said.

Initiated by businesswoman Ana Patricia Non in Maginhawa St. in Quezon City, community pantries spread like wildfire in the country that exhibited the traditional “Bayanihan (cooperative act)’’ spirit and kindness of the Filipinos in the midst of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19).

Malaya also clarified that the DILG did not order profiling and surveillance activities to organizers of community pantry. “In fact, we support the existence of these pantries. We offered the help of the Philippine National Police and barangays if needed so these community pantries may operate freely,” Malaya added.

On April 20, the Maginhawa Community Pantry temporarily stopped its operation due to alleged police profiling but was re-opened the following day after authorities assured that law enforcers will not bother them.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/militant-groups-welcome-to-set-up-community-pantries-dilg/

Don't use community pantries in anti-gov't propaganda: PNP

By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan April 21, 2021, 3:24 pm

A community pantry in Malabon (Photo courtesy of Nina Louise Tesorero)

MANILA – Groups and individuals are free to set up community pantries to help the needy but using these to incite hatred against the government is a different story, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Wednesday.

PNP spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Ronaldo Olay, made this remark, following reports of some community pantries where anti-government leaflets are being distributed to beneficiaries.

"Yan ay binabato sa mga commanders on the ground namin kaya yun ang tinitingnan namin na huwag naman ito abusuhin o sakyan ng mga grupo. Sa amin ay kung in the spirit of bayanihan ay talagang nagbibigay sila ng ayuda at walang kulay ay wala pong masama doon dahil pagtulong ito pero kapag sinakyan na ito ng mga ibang organisasyon na may ibang pakay ay doon na magkakaroon ng ibang interpretasyon ang kanilang mga gawain (We have relayed this to the commanders on the ground because what we are after is that these should not be abused or taken advantage of by some groups. As for us, there is nothing wrong with helping one another in the spirit of bayanihan but if these are taken advantage of by other organizations that have other motives. This gives a different interpretation of their acts)," Olay said in a Laging Handa briefing.

Olay added that community pantry organizers have nothing to fear about the presence of police officers, stressing that their only concern is to ensure orderly distribution and observance of health protocols.

“The police officers were only deployed to ensure peace and order for people lining up at the pantries. Para walang mag unahan (So that no one will skip the lines)," he added.

Olay also added that PNP chief, Gen. Debold Sinas, has ordered an investigation into the alleged profiling and red tagging of community pantry organizers by police officers.

"Inatasan niya ang CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) at saka ang ACG (Anti- Cybercrime Group) on Facebook accounts ng PNP na nag-share ng mga posts na nagbibigay bahid sa mga gawaing ito (He has ordered the CIDG and the ACG to probe these Facebook accounts of the PNP that shared alleged red-tagging posts),” he said. Meanwhile, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary and spokesperson Jonathan Malaya also appealed to groups and people to spare the noble cause from politics.

Spare from politics

"Whatever they say during those community pantries, if they put on signs, are part of protected speech. We are a democratic society and people can say whatever they want. However, we in the DILG would rather that people do not include politics in the community pantry,’’ Malaya said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.

Malaya emphasized that adding political color to community pantries may turn these acts into an act of propaganda.

The DILG official noted that the department appeals to the public and organizers of the community pantry “to keep this initiative politically zero so that we do not further complicate (current health situation).’’

“We are already in a disaster and then we are ascribing politics to what should be selfless acts of kindness,’’ said Malaya.

The DILG earlier denied that it has tapped the PNP to conduct profiling and surveillance of community pantry organizers.

"In fact, we support the existence of these pantries. We offered the help of the PNP and barangays if needed so these community pantries may operate freely," he added.

With regards to declarations attributed to the National Task Force To End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) pertaining to leftist groups using community pantries for propaganda purposes, Malaya explained that this is different from the statement coming from the DILG.

“We are part of the NTF-ELCAC but we are not the head of the communications cluster. It's headed by someone else, by Usec. (Undersecretary) Lorraine Badoy so the statements coming from the NTF-ELCAC are different from those coming from the DILG. I do not wish to intrude with what the NTF-ELCAC is doing," he said, adding that the DILG is mandated to supervise peace and order, public safety and good local governance. (PNA)

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137516

Red tagging sa community pantries 'galing sa itaas,' ayon sa dating kongresista ABS-CBN News Posted at Apr 21 2021 05:54 PM | Updated as of Apr 21 2021 08:57 PM

Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News

MAYNILA — Kumbinsido ang dating congressman at Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares na may "kumpas sa taas" ang naiulat na pangha-harass ng mga pulis sa ilang community pantry organizers.

Nakatanggap aniya sila ng report na bukod sa Maginhawa, pinuntahan din ng mga pulis ang ibang community pantry gaya sa Matatag, Loyola, at maging hanggang sa Bicol.

"Hindi pwedeng may pulis lang na nag-isip na 'pumunta nga ako sa Maginhawa,' imposible yun. Galing yun sa taas. National yun. Ito naman ang problema sa kapulisan natin, ayaw magsabi ng impormasyon na kailangan, sino ba talaga ang nag-utos nyan?" ani Colmenares.

Watch more in iWantTFC Kaya naman nag-ikot ngayong araw si Colmenares at ilang volunteer lawyers sa iba't ibang community pantry sa Metro Manila para ipakita ang suporta at pakikiisa sa kanilang inisyatibo.

From the Maginhawa #CommunityPantryPH, Colmenares and Ursua also visited and talked to organizers of community pantries in Maharlika and Matatag, also in Quezon City. They advised them to decline providing personal information to the police. pic.twitter.com/eagtJXE3zR

— Mike Navallo (@mikenavallo) April 21, 2021 Sabi ni Colmenares, gusto nilang ipanatag ang loob ng mga organizer na wala silang nilalabag na batas.

Giit naman ng Palasyo nitong Martes, maganda ang hangarin ng mga community pantry at ito hindi nila tututulan. Dumistanya rin ang Malacanang sa red-tagging at sinabing ang National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) ang nararapat sumagot sa mga akusasyon.

Nauna nang humingi ng tawad ang Quezon City Police District matapos i-red taga ng grupo ni Ana Patricia Non, ang nagpasimuno ng Maginhawa community pantry na ginaya na sa iba't ibang bahagi ng bansa. Wala naman aniyang dapat ikatakot ang mga nais magtayo ng community pantry, ayon kay NTF-ELCAC spokesman Lt. Gen. Antonio Perlade.

"They're informing us na 'merong ganitong activity sa aming community, paki-chek po kasi bakit sila meron silang karatula na kung ano-ano.' Merong agitation mga propaganda materials... Iba na ho kung merong pabagsakin ang gobyerno," ani Parlade.

Paliwanag naman ng sociologist na si Dakila Kim Yee ng Tacloban City College, nagkakaroon ng community demand kung may kakulangan ang gobyerno lalo na sa panahong may pandemya at gutom ang epekto ng mga pagkukulang sa serbisyo ng pamahalaan.

"Yung mga ganitong initiatives uusbong siya, magsusulputan siya kung merong perceived na gaps sa service delivery po. Kumbaga usually sa merkado kung wala namang pambili yung tao, yung produkto o serbisyo pwedeng punan ng mga community based na mga networks," paliwanag ni Yee.

Balik-operasyon naman ang Maginhawa community pantry nitong Miyerkoles matapos pansamantalang magsara dahil sa red tagging.

—May ulat ni Mike Navallo, ABS-CBN News

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/21/21/sino-nagpautos-red-tagging-community-pantry-neri- colmenares-comment

Gabriela urges House: Tap P19-B NTF-ELCAC fund for ‘ayuda’ bill, Bayanihan 3

Published April 21, 2021, 4:18 PM by Hannah Torregoza The Gabriela Women’s Party is now urging the House Committee on Economic Affairs to utilize the P19-billion budget of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) to fund the proposed measures that seek to provide sufficient cash aid to Filipino families affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

(MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)

In a letter sent to Aklan 2nd Distict Representative Teoderico Haresco, Jr., chairperson of the House economic affairs panel, Assistant Minority Leader and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas urged Haresco to consider the NTF-ELCAC funds as sources of the bill seeking to grant P10,000 financial assistance to poor families and the proposed third tranche of the government’s economic stimulus package to cover the country’s COVID-19 response.

“The rise of community pantries has deeply underscored the inadequacy of existing government programs to ease the hunger of families, and has likewise emphasized the urgency of immediately approving our P10k ‘ayuda’ bill as well as the economic stimulus bills,” Brosas said in the letter.

“We strongly propose that the P16.44-billion budget currently for the Support to the Barangay Development Program of the NTF-ELCAC, which is under the Local Government Support Fund (LGSF), and around P3 billion in operational expenses of the NTF-ELCAC in various agencies, be considered as among the sources of funding for the provision of P10,000 cash aid for poor and low-income families,” she said.

The party-list representative earlier filed House Bill No. 9089, which seeks the granting of P10,000 cash aid to families affected by the pandemic, crisis and calamities.

The measure is now being consolidated with the Bayanihan 3 bill for approval by the committee.

Brosas explained that P19 billion is enough to provide P10,000 cash aid to 1.9 million families. “P19 billion is also enough to ensure the operations of 271,000 community pantries for one week, assuming that daily supplies for each pantry are worth P10,000,” she also said.

“We cannot let billions in people’s taxes be wasted in the unrelenting red-tagging spree of the NTF-ELCAC. We hope that this proposal will be reflected in the consolidated version of the Bayanihan 3 bill,” the lawmaker added.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/gabriela-urges-house-tap-p19-b-ntf-elcac-fund-for-ayuda-bill- bayanihan-3/

NTF-ELCAC’s Esperon: Community ‘bayanihan’ projects encouraged but…

Published April 21, 2021, 4:05 PM by Martin Sadongdong The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) is looking into the possibility that there are personalities connected with the communist rebels who are behind the setting up of various community pantries in the country, a top security official said on Wednesday, April 21.

(ALI VICOY / MANILA BULLETIN) National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., vice chairman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), said they “support” and would even contribute to community pantries that are now sprouting across the country to help those who are in need amid the pandemic.

“We, of course, encourage community works and community bayanihan projects but we also look into organizers especially if they advertise their organizations that would be traced to the legal fronts or front organizations of the CPP-NPA,” he said in a virtual Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum Wednesday, April 21.

Esperon confirmed he received information that some personalities were associating the existence of community pantries to the lack of government’s support to the public amid the previous enforcement of lockdowns, forcing many people into hunger.

Prior to this, NTF-ELCAC spokesperson Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. said they were conducting a background check on the organizers of the community pantries. He, however, did not specify the individuals they were “checking.”

“Nothing is conclusive yet but we would like to encourage these kinds of community based self-help projects but we of course would like to look into possible participation of personalities that may have another agenda, that may tend to turn these projects into some… for political and agitation purposes,” Esperon explained.

“That is all there is to it, otherwise, we encourage it. We would all even contribute to that,” he added. The first community pantry established on Maginhawa Street in Quezon City was forced to stop its operations on Tuesday after its organizer, Ana Patricia Non, decried red-tagging.

In a Facebook post, she showed screenshots of social media posts made by the NTF-ELCAC and the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) accusing the community pantry initiative of being linked to the CPP-NPA.

The critics of the community bayanihan initiative claimed in their narrative that the organizers were painting a bad light on the government’s lack of support to the people, thus, encouraging the public to cultivate hate against government officials.

But Non has clarified that she only started the community pantry movement with all the “good intentions in mind” and to help the people in her community get by everyday through an open pantry where they could get food and other basic necessities for free.

Donations from well-meaning individuals, on the other hand, keep the pantry sustainable.

She also denied being a part of any communist group or front organization of the CPP-NPA.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/ntf-elcacs-esperon-community-bayanihan-projects-encouraged-but/

Belmonte appeals to NTF-ELCAC: Be more sensitive, don’t stoke fear

Published April 21, 2021, 2:28 PM by Joseph Pedrajas Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Wednesday appealed to the country’s anti-communist panel to “be more sensitive” to people’s feelings as deploying armed personnel to community pantries might stoke fear among the citizens.

Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte (QC GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE/ MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)

Belmonte said that as much as she understands the responsibility of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict’s (NTF-ELCAC) to ensure security, she also wants it to “trust the structure they put in place.”

“Kaya nga kasama kayo sa ating peace and order council…kasi tinuturuan nyo kami paano magidentify ng (The reason why you are part of our peace and order council is because you help us identify) actions or words that might be attached to movements to overthrow the government,” she said in an ANC interview.

Belmonte added that it is actually the barangay authorities that have the capacity to determine threatening or alarming actions because they know their people in the community.

Since the Quezon City Police District already told Belmonte that it was not members of the city police that were deployed to Maginhawa Community Pantry carrying long firearms, the mayor said she assumes the personnel were from NTF-ELCAC.

She said the anti-communist panel’s deployment of armed personnel showed that even they were “not trusing the sytem they put in place” as they were “doing everything by themselves.”

“It scares our constituents,” Belmonte said as some uniformed personnel also reportedly went to other community pantries in the city and did a profiling on the volunteers.

“Our job is to protect and to make them feel safe. And what we’re doing is the opposite,” she added.

Belmonte told NTF-ELCAC that the local government is willing to work with it should it get alarming and verified intelligence about community pantries.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/belmonte-appeals-to-ntf-elcac-be-more-sensitive-dont-stoke-fear/

Belmonte hits Badoy for calling community pantries ‘communist propaganda’

Published April 21, 2021, 11:04 AM by Joseph Pedrajas Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, who expressed support for community pantries, on Wednesday criticized National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF- ELCAC) spokesperson Lorraine Badoy for alleging that community pantries have links with the communists.

Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte (QC GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE/ MANILA BULLETIN)

Belmonte said that “helping your fellow men” and “doing Christian duties” are far from “overthrowing the government.”

“Ang layo naman ng leap (There’s a great leap of analogy), from helping your fellow man doing Christian duty, following the values taught to us by the Church, whatever religion we belong to, doon sa (to) overthrowing the government. Ang layo nya,” she said in an ANC interview.

“And in fact, nagugulat ako na meron silang ganitong statement kasi (In fact, I’m surprised by their statements because) the ELCAC has been working with the local government and the barangays,” she added.

Badoy had earlier claimed that some community pantries, particularly those that were recently covered by the media, are being exploited by the communists to make people believe the government is “inutile.”

“Tigilan nyo ang modus operandi nyo na nakadikit sa framework at doktrina ng CPP-NPA- NDF nang pag-package ng communist propaganda bilang serbisyo sa taong bayan at ang pagdugtong dito ng kasinungalingan na walang ginagawa at inutil ang gobyerno (Stop your modus operandi that’s attached to the framework and doctrine of the CPP-NPA-NDF or communist propaganda that’s packaged as public service),” Badoy said in a statement posted on her Facebook page.

According to Belmonte, she was surprised to learn that NTF-ELCAC issued such an allegation when the task force has “been lecturing” local government units “to know, to be able to distinguish the signs of…impending insurgency.” “There’s a spectrum that they’ve told us about that there’s a difference between armed insurgency wanting to overthrow the government which is one end of the spectrum, and then the other end is you can speak your mind out,” she said.

Belmonte maintained community pantries need no permits as they are not commercial activities as long as health protocols and city ordinances are observed and followed.

She also assured Ana Patricia Non, whose pantry sparked the emergence of at least 300 community pantries across the country, of safety and support from the local government.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/belmonte-hits-badoy-for-calling-community-pantries-communist- propaganda/

What to do if law enforcers visit your community pantry? Diokno offers tips Kristine Joy Patag (Philstar.com) - April 21, 2021 - 4:13pm MANILA, Philippines — The Maginhawa Community Pantry, the first that inspired hundred of other food banks across the country, resumed its operations on Wednesday after a day of temporarily closing down — due to red-tagging and fear for volunteers' safety.

An ABS-CBN tweet report on Wednesday said Ana Patricia Non shared that police has been asking for her number, which she gave to them since it is also accessible online. But she also learned from other volunteers that police had been asking for her address, and even if she is in a relationship.

Other organizers also reported similar harassment. Ia Marañon, organizer of the community pantry in Barangay Loyola Heights also in Quezon City, told Philstar.com that cops in combat fatigues approached them and asked for information on the organizers and their affiliations.

If law enforcers approach community pantries and their organizers, veteran rights lawyer Chel Diokno offers the following tips:

In a tweet thread, Diokno said that if law enforcers approach community pantry organizers and they are in uniform, they should ask for their names. If they are in civilian attire, they can ask them politely for a government ID and to write their names and affiliations, such as if they are from the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines or the National Bureau of Investigation.

“If they refuse, politely say that you can’t accommodate them because you are unsure if they are really law enforcers,” Diokno added.

If they are asked to fill out a form asking name, age, address, contact number and even Facebook account name, Diokno stressed that they are in no obligation to give their personal information. Privacy Commissioner Raymund Liboro and Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra also said as such.

“If the community pantry is in a private property, law enforcers cannot enter [premises] without a search warrant unless the owner allows it,” Diokno also said. They can ask for a search warrant issued by a court judge, but if they cannot present such document, the lawyer says they can refuse to allow them entry.

3. If the community pantry is in private property, di pwede pumasok ang law enforcers kung walang search warrant, unless pumayag ang may-ari. Ask for a warrant signed by a judge; kung wala, sabihin: “Pasensya na po, pero di kayo pwedeng pumasok kung wala kayong search warrant."

— Chel Diokno (@ChelDiokno) April 21, 2021 “If the police insist, or imply that you are hiding something (If you are not hiding something, why don’t you let us in?), assert your right. Tell them: ‘That is my right and that is the lawyer’s advice to me',” he added.

If the community pantry is in public land, police do not need a search warrant to enter, but the rights lawyer stressed that “they still need a search warrant to search the community pantry or any other private property that is on public land,” he added.

Diokno also advised organizers to make sure that the community pantry, if on public land, does not obstruct traffic or they are not littering as this would constitute a violation of local regulations.

The lawyer said they may also be asked for a business permit, also known as a mayor’s permit. Organizers can answer them that in their understanding, they do not need any permit since the community pantry is not a business and was put up solely to help the needy.

If they would be asked to present a permit from the barangay, they can point out that the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Anti- Red Tape Authority said in separate statements that a barangay permit is not needed.

Should they be asked to show an authority to solicit from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, they can reply that based on their understanding, this is only required for regional and national fund campaigns, and not for community pantries, Diokno also said.

Diokno explained that regulations issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force are merely recommendatory and “do not have the force of law unless they are adopted by the [local government unit] as a local ordinance.” But he pointed out that even under IATF guidelines, humanitarian activities are allowed even if the locality is under enhanced community quarantine status or MECQ.

“Since a permit is not required to operate a community pantry, and the poor and urgently in need of food, a community pantry is an authorized humanitarian activity,” the rights lawyer said.

“Community pantries do not violate the IATF guidelines on humanitarian activities since no permit or license is required for them to operate,” he added.

Do not physically resist.

If law enforcers try to dismantle the community pantry, Diokno said they can “politely and firmly object” but they should not resist physically.

They can also take videos or photos to document what they are doing, he added.

The lawyer explained that they do not need their consent if they will take videos. “The Anti-Wiretapping Act requires the consent of the parties if it is a private conversation or communication,” he added.

If law enforcers arrest them or search other volunteers or the community pantry, Diokno referred them to this primer made by the Free Legal Assistance Group, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and the Foundation for Media Alternatives. Organizers should read thoroughly whatever document, such an acknowledgment that they were visited, they can be asked to sign. They can also say that they need to consult with a lawyer before they sign.

Diokno warned that the document “may contain a waiver of rights and this can prejudice your right to file a case if necessary.”

He also advised them to take a photo of the document and forward it to a lawyer.

If the police insist, Diokno said they can use their non-dominant hand (if they write with their right hand, use left for signing, and vice versa) or use a different signature than the usual. “So you can later explain that you were forced to sign,” he added. Diokno said if they can, set up CCTV cameras in their community pantry and ensure that it records 24/7.

The rights lawyer ended his thread with an expression of gratitude to all those who help and contribute to community pantries.

“I wish this can help you. You can also reach out to our FREE LEGAL HELPDESK anytime, you can just message us,” he added.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/21/2092758/what-do-if-law-enforcers-visit-your- community-pantry-diokno-offers-tips

Presidential task force exec: No truth in alleged kidnapping of activist

(Philstar.com) - April 21, 2021 - 12:20pm MANILA, Philippines (Updated 4:15 p.m.) — The Presidential Task Force on Media Security on Wednesday disputed claims by activist group Anakbayan that authorities abducted activist Alice Jasper Lucena, saying she was actually fetched by her mother, who works for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

Lucena previously said her parents were detaining her, as documented by an ABS-CBN report on the sworn statement she submitted to a Department of Justice panel of prosecutors in 2019.

PTFoMS Executive Director Joel Egco, reacting to a Philstar.com report, that authorities allegedly abducted Alicia, said that she was actually fetched by her mother who suspected she had COVID-19 and wanted to get her swabbed. "Mrs. Lucena asked me if I can help them look for a swabbing facility that is not expensive," Egco said.

He added that while he is currently on self-quarantine in Nueva Ecija he "pulled some strings" for the younger Lucena to be accommodated at a swabbing facility at a mall in Pasay City. Egco also said that his staff coordinated with Police Lt. Col. Jess Ostrea of the Philippine National Police Medical Reserve Force.

"It is unfair and immoral and grossly unethical for anybody, especially a respected news outfit, to publish such story that has put me and Col. Ostrea in a bad light. We just helped and responded to a request by a friend in need," he further said.

In a post on Facebook on Monday night, Anakbayan said Alicia Lucena and Sofia Bangayan were set up for "illegal capture" by members of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict who "lured [them] to the local barangay hall anticipating randomized swab testing."

They said Bagayan was eventually allowed to go home but that Lucena was still missing as of Monday evening. "[Lucena] is the daughter of NTF-ELCAC agent and Hands Off Our Children frontman, Relissa Lucena. Anakbayan fears that she is once again being kept incommunicado and subjected to torturous psychological warfare by state forces," Anakbayan said.

Sofia Bangayan, who Anakbayan said was initially taken with Lucena on Monday, told reporters Wednesday that Alicia had a panic attack upon seeing her parents and was carried away by them and by officials.

She also said the landlady of the residence that Anakbayan members are renting, and where Lucena and Bangayan stayed, a certain Arlette Demasuay, and their barangay captain, Eleanor Arceo, were involved in what she characterized as an NTF-ELCAC operation.

During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Bangayan addressed reporters in Filipino, saying she and Lucena had been waiting to hear from local officials about swab testing because Alicia was exhibiting symptoms for COVID-19.

When they were contacted on Monday, April 19, they thought they would be taken to the health center beside their office but were instead told to go straight to the barangay’s office.

Bangayan said Alicia’s father, Francis Lucena, arrived shortly after, accompanied by a certain Jasper Salazar and another companion who was there to take a video.

According to Bangayan, just seeing her father was enough to make Lucena afraid. “[Alicia] wasn’t speaking or moving.”

"Alicia asked Francis what he was doing there and Mr. Francis wasn’t answering until it was clear that Alicia was having a panic attack because she was shaking and crying.”

Lucena's mother, Relissa, eventually arrived with two police officers, according to Bangayan. She said Relissa was yelling and causing a scene at the barangay.

"It came to that point that I was holding Alicia but Ms. Relissa pulled me by my right hand and pushed me away," she said. "That’s when they started taking Alicia. They also took her phone and stopped me when I tried to take it…because they said they would take it with them.” Bangayan said Alicia was struggling against four people and was eventually carried out of the office. Bangayan added that she was blocked by the police officers and their barangay captain.

"You could hear her screaming that she didn’t want to go with them but because she didn’t have the strength compared to them, she was forcibly put by Relissa into a car,” she added.

“I was left at the barangay and was brought to [Quezon City] to get swab tested. Eventually, I was brought home."

Authorities and Anakabayan have clashed over Lucena in the courts since 2019.

Alicia's parents have long accused Anakbayan of kidnapping, most recently filing a Writ of Amparo petition that was junked by the Supreme Court last September.

The high court ruled that Lucena was not missing, as her parents claimed, and could make her own choices as an 18-year-old.

Before this, police filed a similar complaint against activists, including Rep. Sarah Elago (Kabataan party-list), accusing them of kidnapping Alicia and forcing her to join Anakbayan.

It was junked by the Department of Justice in October 2020.

Relissa Lucena was also one of the resource speakers at Senate hearings on the supposed disappearance of minors after being recruited by left-leaning groups in 2019.

Alicia appeared that year in a video posted by Film Weekly and said that she was not missing and was not kidnapped. She also said that she left home voluntarily.— Bella Perez-Rubio

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/21/2092730/presidential-task-force-exec-no-truth- alleged-kidnapping-activist

What’s next for wounded soldiers? It could be mushroom farming

Published April 21, 2021, 2:16 PM by Betheena Unite Here’s something that could give wounded soldiers a new lease on life in the event that their injuries force them to return to society as civilians.

(Photographer: Nana Buxani / Bloomberg / File photo / MANILA BULLETIN)

The Department of Agriculture- Bureau of Plant Industry (DA-BPI) and the Wounded Soldiers Agriculture Cooperative (WSAC) have forged a partnership that would provide such soldiers with a new form of livelihood through mushroom farming.

As the chosen beneficiaries, soldiers–specifically those deemed no longer fit for combat due to their injuries–will be given mushroom technology lectures and hands-on training upon returning to civilian life, the agriculture agency said.

A mushroom entrepreneurial technology park will be established in Sitio Paliko in Barangay Biliran, Nasugbu, Batangas for this purpose.

“The indoor cultivation and production of volvariella (a mushroom specie)…can be adapted by other mushroom growers. This technology will utilize bulk of rice straw which will be another opportunity for rice farmers in the municipality,” the DA-BAI said.

According to Mary Ann B. Guerrero, chief of BPI-Crop Research and Production Support Division (CRPSD), the mushroom hub will include a mushroom laboratory, growing house, composting shed, as well as a processing and packaging building.

It will serve as a learning and business hub of mushroom production as well as a community model in food production in general. This could help develop entrepreneurial activities in the community.

Mushroom growers in the area may also bring their produce to the mushroom hub.

First Lieutenant Jerome J. Jacuba, WSAC chair, said that as a battle casualty himself, he expects the hub to contribute to the rehabilitation and income of his fellow soldiers.

It was learned that LtC Angel delos Santos, commanding officer of 514th Engineering Battalion, will provide five hectares of land to the cooperative.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/whats-next-for-wounded-soldiers-it-could-be-mushroom-farming/ Twelve U.S. states urge Biden to back phasing out gas-powered vehicle sales by 2035

Reuters 3 minutes read

1/2 Travellers take to the roads ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. November 24, 2020. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - The governors of a dozen U.S. states including California, New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina called on President Joe Biden on Wednesday to back ending sales of new gasoline- powered vehicles by 2035, a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels.

https://www.reuters.com/business/twelve-us-states-urge-biden-back-phasing-out-gas-powered- vehicle-sales-by-2035-2021-04-21/

‘Last Straw’: Americans confront racism, violence in Chauvin trial Brad Brooks 5 minutes read

1/2 New York City mayoral candidate Dianne Morales speaks to reporters after the verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, found guilty of the death of George Floyd, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S., April 20, 2021. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The trial and conviction of former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd came with America at a crossroads, a moment of anguish, but also of possibility, which historians and activists compared to the Civil Rights era

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/last-straw-americans-confront-racism-violence-chauvin-trial-2021- 04-21/

New rules allowing small drones to fly over people in U.S. take effect ReutersDavid Shepardson 2 minutes read

A drone flies over downtown during a NASA demonstration on the testing of its Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) platform in Reno, Nevada, U.S., May 21, 2019. REUTERS/Bob Strong

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that final rules announced in December took effect on Wednesday allowing for small drones to fly over people and at night, a significant step toward their eventual use for widespread commercial deliveries.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/new-rules-allowing-small-drones-fly-over- people-us-take-effect-2021-04-21/

US Pacific Islanders highlight their cultures and concerns as pushback against anti-Asian hate sees them swept up in AAPI acronym

• ‘The path to equity is different for every ethnic group, and certainly very different for Asians as a whole versus Pacific Islanders’ • Acronym for Asian-American Pacific Islander is used regularly, but some have criticised its catch-all nature

Asians living in America are under assault. Rarely a day passes without a report about someone of Chinese, Filipino, Thai or Indonesian descent being attacked or even killed. Legislation meant to address the onslaught is moving through Congress. And US President

Joe Biden

he tide of violence.

Chinese,has set up Japanese a task force, and other warning East that Asians, “we seenhave asto partact” toof thesestem tcommunities, have suffered against them by those looking for Covid-19 scapegoats has put their plight in the mainstream for the firstdiscrimination time. and violence in the United States throughout the country’s history. But the backlash

As the violence and harassment of Asians continues, the acronym AAPI which stands for Asian- American and Pacific Islander, a group that comprises dozens of ethnicities and many more languages and dialects has been catapulted into regular usage. –

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3130357/aapi-grows-label-– us-pacific-islanders-point-out- uniqueness-their

Biden calls Chauvin verdict a 'giant step' toward justice in the United States

ReutersJarrett RenshawNandita Bose 3 minutes read

This video will resu President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the guilty verdict in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd "a giant step" toward justice in the United States.

https://www.reuters.com/business/legal/biden-says-praying-right-verdict-chauvin-trial-2021-04-20/

US hopes Xi Jinping will unveil further measures to fight climate crisis at summit this week

• Xi Jinping is expected to deliver a speech on Thursday • A Chinese diplomat recently said that the country would be unlikely to increase the ambition of its climate goals, citing its status as a developing country

The Biden administration hopes China will unveil further measures to combat the climate crisis at the US-hosted climate summit this week, said a senior administration official on Wednesday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is among an expected roster of 40 heads of state who will make an appearance at the climate summit, and is expected to deliver a speech on Thursday, the first of two days of the event.

he meeting and further elaborate on some of the orters. “We certainly hope that President Xi will come to t additionalhttps://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3130517/us-hopes- efforts that China would choose to make,” the official, speaking onxi background,-jinping-will-unveil-further- told rep measures-fight-climate

Panel recommends that U.S. officials not go to China's Olympics

Simon LewisMichael Martina 5 minutes read

1/2 A man walks past a board with logos of 2022 Winter Olympic Games, at a souvenir shop under renovation in Beijing, China January 29, 2021. Picture taken January 29, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

A U.S. government commission on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to not send officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing religious persecution including China's repression of Uighur Muslims, which Washington has labeled genocide.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/panel-recommends-that-us-officials-not-go-chinas- olympics-2021-04-21/

US lawmakers back US$100 billion science push to compete with China

• The Endless Frontier Act represents a significant effort to boost private sector and university research in advanced technologies with federal funding • The bipartisan measure would also authorise another US$10 billion to designate regional technology hubs and create a supply chain crisis response programme

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation calling for US$100 billion in government spending over five years on basic and advanced technology research and science in the face of rising competitive pressure from China.

The measure, sponsored by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Republican Senator Todd Young and others, would also authorise another US$10 billion to designate at least 10 regional technology hubs and create a supply chain crisis response programme.

The bill, ca fort by the government to shore up private sector and university research efforts in advanced technologies with federal funding. lled the “Endless Frontier Act”, represents a significant ef https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3130523/us-lawmakers-back-us100- billion-science-push

U.S. bill aimed at countering China aggression set to pass committee stage

04/21/2021 08:14 PM

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The U.S. Capitol Building. CNA file photo Washington, April 20 (CNA) A draft bill that seeks to boost the United States' capability to counter China's aggression on the international stage, including its belligerence against Taiwan, is expected to clear the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday (U.S. time).

Titled the "Strategic Competition Act of 2021," the draft bill calls for the U.S. to reassert its leadership within international organizations and other multilateral arenas and to bolster its diplomacy strategy to address the challenges posed by the Chinese government.

The bipartisan bill addresses abuses in Xinjiang such as forced labor and forced sterilization and focuses on confronting China over its "predatory international economic behavior."

It calls for "enhanced coordination and cooperation with allies on arms control in the face of China's military modernization and expansion, and requires reporting on Chinese ballistic, hypersonic glide, and cruise missiles, conventional forces, nuclear, space, cyberspace and other strategic domains."

If the bill is passed by the U.S. Congress, it will allow for an allocation of US$655 million to foreign military forces in the Indo-Pacific region and US$450 million to the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative to ensure that the U.S. and its partners can operate freely in the region and address any threats that may arise. The programs and allocations listed in the draft legislation also include US$75 million for an 'Infrastructure Transaction and Assistance Network' in the Indo-Pacific as a counterweight to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

On the Taiwan issue, the 281-page bill says it is "a vital part of the United States Indo- Pacific strategy" and there should be no restrictions on American officials' interaction with their Taiwanese counterparts.

The U.S. State Department and other government agencies should engage with the Taiwanese government "on the same basis, and using the same nomenclature and protocol" as it does with other foreign governments, the bill states.

In terms of military strategy, it asks Washington to help Taiwan execute its asymmetric defense strategy, urges the island to increase its defense spending, and advises regular U.S. transfers of a range of defensive weaponry and military technologies to Taiwan.

It also reiterates the U.S.' support for Taiwan's "meaningful participation in the United Nations system" and other global organizations, including the World Health Assembly, International Civil Aviation Organization, and International Criminal Police Organization.

The draft bill was introduced April 8 by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez and Ranking Member Jim Risch.

Menendez said the bill is an "unprecedented bipartisan effort to mobilize all U.S. strategic, economic, and diplomatic tools for an Indo-Pacific strategy that will allow our nation to truly confront the challenges China poses to our national and economic security."

The committee is expected to clear the draft bill when it votes on it Wednesday, after which it will be sent to the Senate chamber for further debate.

https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202104210020

U.S. lawmakers intensify bipartisan efforts to counter China Patricia ZengerleMichael Martina 5 minutes read

Chinese and U.S. flags flutter outside the building of an American company in Beijing, China January 21, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

A bipartisan U.S. congressional push to counteract China picked up steam on Wednesday as a Senate committee overwhelmingly backed a bill pressing Beijing on human rights and economic competition and other lawmakers introduced a measure seeking billions for technology research.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-lawmakers-look-advance-sweeping-bid-counter-china- 2021-04-21/

US senators propose more programmes to help competition with China

• The Strategic Competition Act of 2021 is amended to provide more aid to Africa and Latin America and more tech funding • The foreign policy issue ‘perhaps for the entire 21st century is going to be China, China and China,’ one senator says

More aid to Africa and Latin America, greater funding for technology industries and a more robust US development bank were among the initiatives added Wednesday to a landmark bill intended to improve

the US’ ability to compete with China.eign policy, and perhaps for the entire 21st century, is going to be Jim Risch of Idaho, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Foreign“The issues Relations, facing usin thetoday hearing in for on the Strategic Competition Act of 2021. China, China and China,” said r

“I can’thttps://www.scmp.com/knowledge/us-china-relations/article/3130528/senators- ove state the significance of this bill.” propose-more- programmes-help-us-compete-china

Analysis: Biden's call to Putin puts Xi on the defensive

China puzzles over US-Russia summit, seeing fates of Taiwan and Crimea linked KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writerAPRIL 22, 2021 04:34 JST

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff writer and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He is the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize for international reporting.

To continue reading, subscribe to https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Analysis-Biden-s-call-to-Putin-puts-Xi-on-the- defensive

Xi to attend Biden’s climate change summit in first meeting of two leaders Reuters 2 minutes read

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China’s President Xi Jinping will attend a U.S.-led climate change summit on Thursday at the invitation of President Joe Biden, in the first meeting between the two leaders since the advent of the new U.S. administration.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/chinas-xi-attend-climate-change-summit-bidens- invitation-2021-04-21/

legal theories China’s lawmakers told to vigorously study Xi Jinping’s • National People’s Congress should use Xi’s ideas as ‘fundamental guidance’, Wang Chen, a top aide of the president, says in lecture to more than 250 lawmakers • Remarks seen as effort to lift Xi’s status in the Communist Party’s history ahead of its centenary in July

Legal theories by President Xi Jinping National Congress are the “fundamental guidance” to govern China with laws, a top aide of Xi said as he lectured the country’s lawmakers.“Delegates to [China’s top-chairman legislature] of thethe People’s Congress… should (NPC) take the Standing lead to Committee,vigorously studysaid. the scientific system of the profound essence of Xi Jinping’s thought on ruling the country by law,” Wang Chen, a vice NationalThe remarks People’s by Wang, a member of the Communist Party -strong Politburo, were made on Tuesday as he lectured a group of 255 lawmakers. There are more than 2,000 seats in the NPC. ’s 25 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3130460/chinas-lawmakers-told-vigorously-study- xi-jinpings-legal

China opposes Australia's cancelling of Belt and Road deals with China Updated 23:10, 21-Apr-2021

00:35

China has expressed strong displeasure and resolute opposition to Australia's cancelling of two cooperation deals between its state of Victoria and China under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The country's position was expressed in a statement by a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Wednesday.

"The BRI is an initiative for economic cooperation, which follows the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and upholds the spirit of openness, inclusiveness and transparency," the statement said.

Australia's move is another unreasonable and provocative action taken by the Australian side against China, the statement added. It is bound to bring further damage to bilateral relations, and will only end up hurting itself.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced on Wednesday night that the BRI deal that Victoria state signed with China has been cancelled under the Commonwealth's new foreign veto laws.

The move is the first use of the new power which allows the commonwealth to unilaterally veto deals it views as contrary to the national interest.

The Australian government has also rejected a 2004 deal with Iran and a scientific deal with Syria.

Canberra says it found the agreements "inconsistent" with Australia's foreign policy. The BRI is a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure scheme launched in 2013 by China. It involves development and investment projects with countries along the ancient Silk Road trade routes that stretches from Asia to Europe, Africa and beyond.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-21/Australia-cancels-Belt-and-Road-deals-with-China-- ZEak8IZnby/index.html

China, Myanmar and others criticised in report on rising religious persecution Philip Pullella 3 minutes read

1/2 An Ethnic Uighur demonstrator wearing a protective face mask takes part in a protest against China, in Istanbul, Turkey October 1, 2020. REUTERS/Murad Sezer Violations of religious freedom are increasing and persecution takes place in more than 25 countries, with China and Myanmar among those that have the worst records, according to a report by a Vatican-backed charity.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-myanmar-others-criticised-report-rising-religious- persecution-2021-04-20/

SPECIAL REPORT Hong Kong activists retreat as China-style justice comes to their city Reuters 20 minutes read

1/5 Pro-democracy activist Lester Shum is taken away by police officers as more than 50 Hong Kong activists are arrested under a security law in Hong Kong, China January 6, 2021. Picture taken January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

On March 23, a Hong Kong High Court judge denied former Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan’s bail appeal and sent him back to Lai Chi Kok prison

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/special-report-hong-kong-activists-retreat-china-style- justice-comes-their-city-2021-04-21/

Put border dispute at appropriate position: China tells India

Beijing and New Delhi are maintaining close communication through diplomatic and military channels, ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said

By Sutirtho Patranobis

PUBLISHED ON APR 22, 2021 12:57 AM IST

A satellite image provided on February 17, 2021, by Maxar Technologies shows the close-up of an area at Pangong Tso, with troops deployment removed on February 16 along the disputed India-China border in Ladakh region. (AP/File)

India should focus on a long-term development of ties with China and put the border dispute at an “appropriate position”, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday, adding that New Delhi should work with Beijing to bring ties back on the tracks of steady development.

The Chinese foreign ministry added that Beijing was committed to maintaining peace at the border, but also determined to safeguard the country’s territorial integrity.

China and India are maintaining close communication through diplomatic and military channels, ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

Wang was responding to Indian ambassador Vikram Misri’s recent statement that there’s a tendency in some quarters to sweep the situation at the border “under the carpet” and characterise it as just a trivial issue.

Misri was speaking via video link at a high-level India-China dialogue where he made it clear that sweeping the problem under the carpet was “inadvisable”.

“In fact, it would be tantamount to running away from the problem and in a direction opposite to that where the promise of our closer development partnership lies,” Misri had told a gathering, which included the Chinese ambassador to India, Sun Weidong.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/put-border-dispute-at-appropriate-position-china-tells- india-101619033265569.html

NEW NORMAL IN SINO-INDIAN TIES

CHIETIGJ BAJPAEE APRIL 21, 2021

COMMENTARY

Tensions along the Sino-Indian border have de-escalated in recent months. Following a nine-month standoff — which entailed the most significant mobilisation of both countries’ militaries in decades, and in which 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers were reportedly killed — there was a withdrawal of frontline troops from the north and south banks of the Pangong Lake area in Ladakh in February. Official statements by both governments have lauded this achievement as a sign of a return to normalcy, with Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh noting that the withdrawal will “substantially restore the situation to that existing prior to the commencement of the standoff last year.” Meanwhile, the Chinese government has been emphatic in calling for the border dispute to be separated from other issues in the bilateral relationship. Indeed, separating these issues has been a mantra guiding relations between both countries in the post-Cold War period.

However, neither the tactical situation along the border nor the broader strategic context remains conducive to a long-term reduction of tensions. None of the fundamental grievances have been resolved in their longstanding border dispute. Neither side has rescinded its claims to disputed territories and there remains a lack of mutual agreement over the exact delineation of the Line of Actual Control that demarcates their borders. Rather than a return to the status quo, last year’s border tensions signify a new normal and a growing proclivity for spillover into other areas of the bilateral relationship. This has wider ramifications for both countries’ engagement with third parties, including the United States.

Partial Tactical De-Escalation

The 10th round of military commander-level talks held on Feb. 20 signaled a partial reduction of bilateral tensions. There remain several outstanding issues, including military withdrawal from the Depsang Plains and stalled disengagement from the Gogra and Hot Springs area in eastern Ladakh (which the 11th round of corps commander- level talks in April failed to resolve). But this did not stop nascent signs of reconciliation at the political level. These include the establishment of a hotline between both countries’ foreign ministers and reports that China has supported India’s candidacy to assume chairmanship of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Forum.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/04/china-and-india-de-escalation-signals-new-normal-rather-than-a- return-to-the-status-quo/

China urges Japan to reflect upon history of aggression

Source: Xinhua| 2021-04-21 18:39:43|Editor: huaxia

BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Wednesday urged Japan to earnestly reflect upon its history of aggression and take practical steps to win trust from neighboring countries.

"China urges Japan to hold fast to the principles established in the four political documents between China and Japan, as well as the four-point principled agreement, and face up to and earnestly reflect upon its history of aggression," spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily press briefing.

Wang's remarks came after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga sent a ritual offering on Wednesday to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, on the occasion of its spring festival.

Noting that the Yasukuni Shrine honors Class-A convicted war criminals in World War II who were directly responsible for Japan's war of aggression, Wang said China firmly opposes the wrong practices of Japanese politicians. He urged Japan to make a clear break with militarism and take practical actions to win trust from its Asian neighbors as well as the international community. Enditem

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-04/21/c_139896434.htm

Wang Yi urges Japan to carefully deal with nuclear polluted water

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged Japan to carefully deal with its nuclear polluted water.

He made the remarks during a video conversation with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Wednesday.

Japan is moving forward with plans to release tonnes of nuclear polluted water into the ocean as the country's cabinet ministers approved the move on April 13. The government says the actual disposal won't begin for another two years.

According to Wang, Japan made the decision unilaterally without considering all disposal measures or disclosing all relevant information and consulting with neighboring countries.

The release of the nuclear polluted water not only directly harms the interests of the Chinese people and people from neighboring countries, but also poses threat to global marine environment, food safety and global public health.

Stressing that the decision will eventually harm the common interest of the international community including Japan, Wang urged the Japanese side to respond to the serious concerns raised by its citizens, neighboring countries and the international community.

He hopes Japan should practically carry out its international responsibilities, reconsider its current plan and carefully deal with the issue in consultation with all relevant parties and the International Atomic Energy Agency. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-21/Wang-Yi-urges-Japan-to-carefully-deal-with-nuclear-polluted- water-ZEiFUg2L0k/index.html

Return the favor: S.Korea looks to U.S. for COVID-19 vaccine aid By Sangmi Cha 4 MIN READ

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea hopes its ally the United States will help it tackle a shortage of coronavirus vaccine in return for test kits and masks Seoul sent to Washington earlier in the pandemic, the foreign minister said on Wednesday.

FILE PHOTO: South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong speaks during a joint announcement with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, March 25, 2021. Ahn Young-joon/Pool via REUTERS

The government has drawn fire from the media for not doing enough to secure enough vaccines early, with just 3% of the population inoculated, due to tight global supply and limited access.

“We have been stressing to the United States that ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed,’” the minister, Chung Eui-yong, told reporters at the Kwanhun Club of South Korean journalists.

He said South Korea had airlifted Washington a large volume of coronavirus test kits and face masks in the early stages of the pandemic “in the spirit of the special South Korea-U.S. alliance,” despite tight domestic supply at the time.

“We are hoping that the United States will help us out with the challenges we are facing with the vaccines, based on the solidarity we demonstrated last year.” The allies were in talks, added Chung, who also flagged South Korea’s potential contribution to preserving a global semiconductor supply chain that U.S. President Joe Biden is keen to maintain.

Diplomatic efforts have not yielded any concrete steps, however, as the talks with Washington are still in an early stage, health ministry official Son Young-rae told reporters.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on discussions with South Korea, whose president, Moon Jae-in, is due to visit Washington for a summit with Biden next month.

“I’m not going to get into any private diplomatic communications with the Republic of Korea or any other country for that matter,” department spokesman Ned Price told a regular news briefing.

While South Korea is an important and longstanding ally, the United States has said its first priority is vaccinating Americans, although it has promised to look into options to help other countries bolster their supplies.

“First and foremost we are focused at this stage on the vaccine vaccination efforts here at home,” Price told the briefing.

“As we are in a more comfortable and confident position here at home with our own vaccination effort, as we’ve been able to address contingencies that may arise, I expect we may be able to do more.”

South Korean opposition lawmaker Park Jin urged more aggressive vaccine diplomacy, calling for the government to invoke its free trade pact (FTA) with Washington to secure pharmaceutical products.

“The government needs to be more proactive,” Park told Reuters. “The FTA provides us a legal base to demand (vaccines) as it stipulates the two countries’ commitment to promoting the development of, and facilitating access to, pharmaceutical products.”

About 1.77 million people in South Korea have had their first dose of the AstraZeneca Plc or Pfizer vaccines. The low rate compares with a 40% vaccination rate in the United States, according to Reuters data here.

Tuesday’s 731 new coronavirus infections, up from 549 cases a day earlier, took South Korea’s tally to 115,926, with 1,806 deaths. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea-usa/return-the-favour-south-korea- looks-to-u-s-for-covid-19-vaccine-aid-idUSKBN2C80I7

S.Korea court dismisses 'comfort women' lawsuit, contradicts earlier ruling Hyonhee Shin 3 minutes read A South Korean court on Wednesday upheld Japan's state immunity to dismiss a lawsuit raised by a group of women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels, contradicting a ruling in a separate earlier case that ordered Tokyo to compensate victims.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/skorea-court-dismisses-comfort-women-lawsuit-contradicts- earlier-ruling-2021-04-21/

IAEA chief hopes Korea takes part in Fukushima water monitoring Posted : 2021-04-21 10:53 Updated : 2021-04-21 10:54

Workers demolish old storage tanks, including water processed in ALPS (Multi- nuclide retrieval equipment), at the tsunami-devastated Tokyo Electric Power Company Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Jan. 22. EPA-Yonhap

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said he "certainly" hopes South Korean experts will participate in the U.N. nuclear watchdog's monitoring of Japan's ocean release of radioactive Fukushima water.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi made the remark during an interview with Yonhap News Agency via video link Tuesday, as Seoul is seeking to take part in the IAEA-led verification efforts amid growing health risk concerns over Tokyo's plans to discharge Fukushima's tritium-laced water into the Pacific Ocean.

"I certainly hope so," he said. "There is a lot of talent in your country, especially in this area, where Korea is one of the leading nations in the world, in nuclear energy, nuclear science and nuclear technology," Grossi said.

"I'm sure that will cover a rich and strong team. A collaboration of experts from your country will be very valuable," he said, adding that he will be informing Seoul in due course.

South Korea considers its participation in the IAEA monitoring team crucial in guaranteeing safety in Japan's release. Seoul has voiced concerns over the discharge plan, saying that Tokyo has not given enough information about the release.

Grossi stressed that his organization is a neutral body that does not take sides.

"The IAEA is a neutral and impartial technical body. We don't have a side on this," he said. "The mission that we have, is to ensure, certify that whole operation, before, during the execution and after the assessment ... (is) in line with internationally recognized standards," he said.

Grossi also said that he will be sending the first technical mission to Japan within this year and that he will visit the country before the actual discharge operations begin.

"This whole thing is about how the IAEA can incorporate to this process, in order to precisely make sure when the operation begins, water released into the ocean ... does not have any harmful, negative effect on the environment, water, fish," he said. (Yonhap)

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2021/04/120_307525.html

with Kim Jong-un, South Korean president Moon Jae-in saysDonald Trump ‘beat around the bush’ after meeting

• Moon Jae-in said he hoped Joe Biden could achieve ‘substantive and irreversible progress for the complete denuclearisation … on the Korean peninsula’ • He urged the US and North Korea to develop a ‘mutually trusted road map’ that would include the removal of crippling international sanctions on Pyongyang

South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged US President Joe Biden to open up talks with North Korea on its nuclear weapons and build on the groundbreaking talks his predecessor Donald Trump held with Pyongyang.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Wednesday, Moon suggested the US president needed to engage directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and not consign denuclearisation talks to lower-level officials haggling over preliminary details.Moon told the n - down dipl ewspaper he favoured “top omacy”. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3130515/trump-beat-around-bush-after-meeting- kim-jong-un-south-korean

Taiwan issue Japan expected to take position of ‘ambiguity’ on • Suga says statement with Biden calling for peace and stability across the strait ‘does not presuppose military involvement’ • Analyst says Tokyo doesn’t want to take a clear stand on whether it would help protect the island because it would be a threat to its own security

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Tuesday downplayed the possibility of getting militarily involved in the Taiwan issue after angeringBeijing with a call for and stability across the strait.Suga made the call with US President “peace ” Joe Biden on Friday during talks at the White House, the first reference to Taiwan which Beijing claims as its territory in a joint statement in over 50 years. The two leaders also said they would counter -Pacific region.Asked by an opposition lawmaker– on Tuesday whether Japan –would get militarily involved in issues related to the Taiwan Strait, in line with US strategyChina’s “intimidation” on China, in the Asia Suga told parliament

that the joint statement “does not presuppose military involvement at all”. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3130511/japan-expected-take-position- ambiguity-taiwan-issue

Japan PM cancels trip to India, Philippines amid rising COVID-19 cases Reuters 2 minutes read

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga wearing a face mask meets COP26 President Alok Sharma at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Japan April 19, 2021. Rodrigo Reyes Marin/Pool via REUTERS

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has cancelled plans to visit India and the Philippines during his country's extended holiday starting in late April amid a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, a senior government spokesman said on Wednesday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-pm-postpone-visit-india-philippines-media-2021-04- 21/

Myanmar activists hold 'blue shirt' protests; report says junta chief to attend summit Reuters 5 minutes read

This video will resume in 15 seconds Myanmar anti-coup activists launched protests on Wednesday calling for the release of detained prisoners, as junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing was reported to be planning to attend a regional summit to discuss the crisis in the country.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/myanmar-sees-blue-shirt-protests-over-detentions-junta- outlaws-unity-govt-2021-04-21/

EXCLUSIVE UN envoy to hold "sideline" meetings ahead of ASEAN summit on Myanmar

Reuters 1 minute read

1/2 Demonstrators block a road during an anti-coup protest in Yangon, Myanmar, March 4, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

The United Nations special envoy for Myanmar will fly to Jakarta on Thursday to meet senior officials of Southeast Asian nations searching for a path to end bloodshed after a coup in Myanmar, according to three sources familiar with her movements.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-un-envoy-hold-sideline-meetings-ahead-asean- summit-myanmar-2021-04-21/

Myanmar coup latest: Over 3m to face hunger in 3 to 6 months, UN says US sanctions state-run pearl and timber companies; UN envoy to meet 'key players' in Jakarta

A boy pushes a cart inside a street market in Yangon on Feb. 2. Due to the coup, a United Nations agency predicts up to 3.4 million more people will face hunger. © AP

Nikkei staff writersApril 17, 2021 17:14 JSTUpdated on April 22, 2021 12:43 JST

YANGON/BANGKOK -- Myanmar's military on Feb. 1 detained State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint in the country's first coup since 1988, bringing an end to a decade of civilian rule.

The Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy had won a landslide in a general election in November. But the military has claimed the election was marred by fraud.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Myanmar-Coup/Myanmar-coup-latest-Over-3m-to-face-hunger-in-3- to-6-months-UN-says

Junta attacks displace nearly 250,000 people in Myanmar: UN envoy

By AFP - April 21, 2021 @ 4:31pm

An anonymous source via Facebook shows student protesters marching during a demonstration against the military coup in Mandalay. (Photo by Handout / FACEBOOK / AFP) YANGON: The Myanmar military junta's crackdown on anti-coup protesters has displaced close to a quarter of a million people, a United Nations rights envoy said Wednesday.

The military has stepped up its use of lethal force to quash mass demonstrations against a February 1 coup which ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

At least 738 people have been killed and 3,300 are languishing in jails as political prisoners, according to a local monitoring group.

"Horrified to learn that... the junta's attacks have already left nearly a quarter (of a) million Myanmar people displaced, according to sources," UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews tweeted on Wednesday.

"The world must act immediately to address this humanitarian catastrophe."

Free Burma Rangers, a Christian aid group, estimated last week at least 24,000 people were displaced in northern Karen state amid military ground attacks and airstrikes earlier in the month.

An anonymous source via Facebook shows workers rebuilding graves for protesters killed by security forces, at Sinphyukwin cemetery in Myanmar's Bago township, after local authorities forced local charity organizations to restructure them as traditional grave sites instead of an originally planned memorial tomb. (Photo by Handout / FACEBOOK / AFP) Karen National Union brigade five spokesperson Padoh Mann Mann said Wednesday that more than 2,000 Karen people have now crossed Myanmar's border into Thailand and that thousands more are internally displaced.

"They all hide in the jungle nearby their villages," he said.

Amid mounting violence, South East Asian leaders and foreign ministers are set to hold talks on the Myanmar crisis in Jakarta on Saturday.

Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing's expected involvement in the summit has angered activists and human rights groups.

"Min Aung Hlaing, who faces international sanctions for his role in military atrocities and the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, should not be welcomed at an intergovernmental gathering to address a crisis he created," Human Rights Watch's Brad Adams said.

Overnight, authorities released freelance video journalist Ko Latt, who had been held in custody for a month in the capital Naypyidaw.

At least 70 reporters have been arrested since the coup and 38 are in detention, according to Reporting ASEAN. – AFP

https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2021/04/684161/junta-attacks-displace-nearly-250000-people- myanmar-un-envoy

Myanmar outlaws newly formed unity government

INTERNATIONAL PLEA: The unity government, formed by opposition figures, urged to be invited to ASEAN talks in place of the general in power since a coup in February

• Reuters Burmese democracy advocates yesterday launched protests calling for the release of prisoners detained by Myanmar’s military government, as the junta declared a national unity government formed by its opponents illegal.

The Southeast Asian country has been in crisis since the military on Feb. 1 seized power from Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, with almost daily protests against the coup occurring despite a brutal crackdown by the junta on dissent.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said that 738 people have been killed by security forces since the coup and 3,300 people are in detention, including 20 who have been sentenced to death.

Demonstrators flash the three-finger salute during a protest against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, yesterday. Photo: EPA-EFE “Please raise your voice and demand the release of all the people who are being unfairly detained under the junta government,” protest leader Ei Thinzar Maung wrote on Facebook.

People yesterday shared photos on social media wearing blue shirts and holding up a hand with the name of an arrested person written on it.

The shirts are a tribute to democracy advocate Win Tin, who was imprisoned by the military for 19 years and died on April 21, 2014.

After his release, he pledged to wear a blue shirt until all political prisoners were freed.

The junta has since the coup released thousands of people from jail, but relatively few who have been linked to the protests.

Meanwhile, military-backed TV channel Myawaddy TV on Tuesday reported that the Burmese Ministry of Home Affairs had declared unlawful a national unity government formed by opponents of the junta. Pro-democracy politicians including ousted lawmakers on Friday last week announced the formation of the new administration that nominally includes Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in detention since the coup, as well as leaders of the protests and ethnic minorities.

The national unity government says it is the legitimate authority, and has requested international recognition and an invitation to an ASEAN meeting in Jakarta on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Myanmar.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement said that the bloc, which includes Myanmar, should immediately withdraw an invitation to Burmese Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the coup.

“Min Aung Hlaing, who faces international sanctions for his role in military atrocities and the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, should not be welcomed at an intergovernmental gathering to address a crisis he created,” HRW Asia director Brad Adams said.

ASEAN has been trying to guide Myanmar out of the bloody turmoil triggered by the coup, but the group’s principles of consensus and noninterference have restricted its ability to overcome members’ divergent views on how to respond to the military killing of hundreds of civilians.

Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, who is also the country’s prime minister, is to chair Saturday’s meeting, his office said in a statement.

The military has shown little willingness to engage with its neighbors and no sign of wanting to talk to members of the government it ousted, accusing some of them of treason, which is punishable by death.

UN Special Envoy to Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener has communicated with the military since the coup, but the junta has not allowed her to visit.

Malaysian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hishammuddin Hussein said that the country’s prime minister would attend the meeting.

“We hope that with the coming discussions in Jakarta, Myanmar will agree to accept representatives from the ASEAN chair Brunei or the ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta to observe and help Myanmar return to normalcy,” he told reporters.

However, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said that he would be represented by his deputy, Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Don Pramudwinai.

Thai and Malaysian officials have said that Min Aung Hlaing would go to Jakarta, although the Burmese government has not commented.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2021/04/22/2003756159

Australia cancels Belt and Road deals; China warns of further damage to ties ReutersKirsty Needham 3 minutes read

Staff members chat as they prepare a seminar of Australia China bilateral cooperation in resources and infrastructure in West Australia, in Beijing July 23, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Australia on Wednesday cancelled two deals struck by its state of Victoria with China on Beijing's flagship Belt and Road Initiative, prompting the Chinese embassy in Canberra to warn that already tense bilateral ties were bound to worsen.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/australia-cancels-victoria-states-belt-road-deals-with-china- 2021-04-21/

Global opposition to China holds danger, opportunity for Taiwan: MAC head

04/21/2021 06:16 PM

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Mainland Affairs Council chief Chiu Tai-san. CNA photo April 20, 2021 Taipei, April 21 (CNA) The emergence of a global coalition to counter China's actions in the Indo-Pacific region carries both danger and opportunity for Taiwan, but at least for the time being, a little more of the latter, according to the head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).

The remarks by Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) during an interview with CNA Tuesday reflect the optimistic approach he has taken since being appointed director of the MAC in February, even as cross-Taiwan Strait ties remain at an impasse.

In his inaugural speech at the MAC, Chiu pledged to do his best to improve cross-strait relations, saying that the two sides should look to cooperate in areas of mutual benefit while avoiding issues that are likely to elicit controversy.

Now two months into the job, Chiu argued that international efforts to push back against China's growing influence in the region -- such as the joint statement on the Taiwan Strait issued by the U.S. and Japan last week -- could help to bring Beijing to the negotiating table.

From former U.S. President Donald Trump through to President Joe Biden, there has been a global system taking shape with the aim of countering or resisting China, he said.

"For Taiwan, international efforts to confront China in various arenas carry both danger and opportunity," Chiu said. "And in the short term, the opportunities seem to be greater." In terms of the danger, he said, there is a risk that these moves will provoke China, causing it to react in ever more extreme ways -- or merely to continue asserting itself through confrontational "wolf warrior" diplomacy.

But there are also reasons to believe it will not respond this way, with one of the main factors being the future prospects of Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平), he said.

On the domestic side, Chiu noted, the Communist Party of China will hold its 20th Party Congress in Beijing next year, at which Xi is widely expected to be granted a third term as China's leader.

In order to justify this breaking of the traditional two-term limit for Chinese leaders, Xi will face pressure to deliver some policy successes, Chiu went on, adding that this will likely provide an incentive to pursuing improved cross-strait ties.

Logically speaking, Xi may also adopt a new approach to China's image abroad, if only to repair some of the damage done by its aggressive diplomacy and military expansionism in recent years, he said.

For example, China's efforts to enforce its claims in the South China Sea have been met with suspicion and antipathy, Chiu said. "And no leader wants their tenure to be defined by economic and foreign policy tensions, or even conflict."

https://focustaiwan.tw/cross-strait/202104210016

Taiwan seeks to join IAEA probe into Japan's wastewater release

Taiwan wants a role in international team for wastewater disposal inspection

By Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

2021/04/21 14:36

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture (AP photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan will seek to be included in a task force led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to investigate Japan’s plans to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星), minister of the Atomic Energy Council, said Taiwan wishes to join the task force following Japan's allowing South Korean representatives to inspect relevant work as members of the IAEA delegation. As one of Japan's neighbors, South Korea has been fiercely opposed to the decision to dispose of the water, with various protests occurring.

According to Hsieh, Taiwan submitted three requests to Japan following the announcementearlier this month that Japan would release more than one million tons of wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea beginning in two years. The requests were related to monitoring the level of radiation in both the water and marine life around Taiwan as well as improving information sharing, wrote CNA.

The Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed the country’s deep concerns about the radioactive water release and its impact on oceanic environments, ecological conservation, and human health. Tokyo has promised to treat and dilute the toxic water to bring radiation levels down below WHO standards for drinking water.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182892

Taiwan ally Paraguay rejects 'blackmail' following Chinese attempt at vaccine diplomacy

Paraguayan president said country open to vaccine deals 'without any conditions involving our diplomatic relations'

2008

By Micah McCartney, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

2021/04/21 17:21

Paraguayan President Mario Benitez. (Facebook, Presidencia de la República del Paraguay screenshot)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — President Mario Benitez of COVID-wracked Paraguay has publicly rebuffed China's attempts to bribe his country into abandoning Taiwan in exchange for Chinese vaccines.

Paraguay, which has seen a spike in coronavirus cases over the past two months, has desperately been seeking to secure vaccines as potential deals with Russia and COVAX have failed to bear fruit.

Benitez on Tuesday (April 20) spoke to the press on the status of the vaccines the country desperately needs.

"We have no problem buying from anywhere. Now, we're not going to accept any kind of blackmail for vaccine purchases," he pointed out. "We ask and are open to having direct dealings with factories in China without any type of conditions involving our diplomatic relations."

China denies that it has attempted to lure the country with its vaccines.

However, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) cited their Paraguayan counterpart as complaining that China had used its jabs as leverage to pressure the Latin American country to drop its ties with Taiwan. The vaccine shortage led to calls from some quarters in Asuncion to drop Taipei in favor of Beijing.

Last week, Paraguay-based soccer federation Conmebol announced Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac had promised it 50,000 doses. Paraguay is one of Taiwan's 15 remaining diplomatic allies. Seven have been poached by China since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2016.

MOFA Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs head Alexander Yui ( 俞大㵢) said Wednesday (April 21) that Taiwan-Paraguay relations are stable following the arrangement of vaccine shipments. Yui further stated that his country would provide its allies with Taiwan-developed vaccines, which are expected to roll out by July after domestic demand is met.

Taipei has helped Asuncion procure 2 million doses of India's COVAXIN vaccine, with a batch of 100,000 already shipped. Benitez told the media that another 100,000 is expected early next week and that the Pan American Health Organization has confirmed another 134,000 vaccines will arrive on April 26.

Benitez said he is optimistic about the number of vaccines his country is set to receive and expects "a good volume" of them by the middle or end of the year.

Paraguay is averaging 2,128 new infections per day, or 211 for every 100,000 people, Reuters reported. This is currently the third-highest rate in Latin America, and the country is rapidly closing in on the peak it set just last Tuesday (April 13).

The country has administered over 87,000 vaccine doses so far, or enough to cover the first dose for approximately six percent of the population.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182976

European Values Center opens in Taiwan to monitor Chinese interference

Czech think tank's Taipei office will focus on Chinese influence operations

1323

By Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

2021/04/21 12:40

Ke Liang-ruey (left), Jakub Janda. (EVC photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Czech think tank European Values Center (EVC) for Security Policy is planning to open a branch in Taiwan this year.

On Tuesday (April 20), Taiwan's Representative to the Czech Republic Ke Liang- ruey (柯良叡) and EVC Director Jakub Janda signed a partnership agreement expressing support for the planned office. It slated to open in the second half of this year and will be the first in Taipei to be run by a private European think tank, according to a press release from the organization.

The Taipei branch will be set up as part of the EVC's Red Watch Program. According to the center, Red Watch is its flagship program designed to monitor "Chinese influence operations."

The Prague-based center was established in 2005 and claims to be one of the largest NGOs concentrating on foreign interference in Europe. Since 2015, its reporting, analysis, and advocacy work have been focused on disinformation and "malign foreign influence in the West."

The center's Kremlin Watch covers Russian influence operations in Europe and has been cited by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and numerous European national security bodies. In recent years, its Red Watch program has been monitoring Chinese activities in central and eastern Europe, such as penetration into and influence of local politics and media.

Jakub was cited by the EVC as saying, "Taiwanese institutions have much to say about Chinese interference activities and how to deal with them." He asserted that Europeans could learn from how Taiwan’s institutions have studied and resisted Beijing's communist regime for decades.

He expressed hope that the organization can "bring more of Taiwan’s priceless knowledge to Europe and to show our European counterparts that it is perfectly normal to cooperate with our friendly fellow democracy in Taiwan." Jakub stated that the EVC's goal is to foster cooperation between Taiwanese and European organizations on issues relating to security and defense.

The office will be set up and headed by Richard Kraemer, who serves as the organization's senior analyst for the Western Balkans and is president of the US- Europe Alliance and a fellow of the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Kraemer stated that he is looking forward to playing a role in building a bridge between civil society and the governments of Taiwan, Europe, and the U.S. in the future.

Kramer remarked that since Taiwan first held democratic elections in the 1990s, it has overcome many major challenges and become the "strongest democracy in the region." He said Taiwan's success in creating a thriving democracy is a "tremendous tribute to the values and fortitude of its people, who persevere despite the existential threat from Beijing."

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182752

Biden-Suga summit leaves Moon with few options

• Home • International • Biden-Suga Summit Leaves Moon With Few Options

Seoul’s “strategic ambiguity” to be tested amid Washington’s ramped-up efforts to form a unified front on a more assertive China

Last week’s highly productive US-Japan summit has left few options for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is heading to Washington next month for a summit with the new US president, experts say.

US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga presented a united front on China in their first face-to-face meeting on Friday.

The leaders reaffirmed their commitments to countering China’s continuing assertiveness over Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea, while pledging a whopping $4.5 billion to develop ultrafast communications technologies to prevent Huawei, China’s state-backed telecom giant, from dominating the global market.

“It’s almost like the US and Japan have announced a set of new global orders,” said Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University. “Now the only option left for South Korea is whether to join the initiative or not.

“It had been widely expected that China issues would loom large in the summit. But discussions were much more direct and specific than expected,” he added.

Biden, three months into his term, has invested heavily in rebuilding ties with Japan and South Korea amid the growing influence of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Tokyo and Seoul were the first destinations of his administration’s highest-level foreign travel in March. With Suga and Moon becoming the first foreign leaders to meet Biden in person, the summit talks are considered the culmination of a flurry of diplomacy over the past months.

But South Korea has walked a fine line to avoid being drawn into the escalating US-China rivalry, while Japan has explicitly backed the US policy of challenging a more assertive China.

For Seoul, Beijing is more than just its biggest trading partner. South Korea has used its ties with China as leverage to engage with a defiant North Korea and put an end to its nuclear ambitions -- Moon’s signature policy goals.

With Washington’s new North Korea policy coming soon, Moon has expressed high hopes of reviving his mediating role in the collapsed diplomacy between the US and North Korea, whose relationship has reached a new low since the breakdown of the second summit talks between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2019.

“Moon may want to make a breakthrough in the stalled denuclearization talks through the upcoming summit with Biden. But the North Korea issue is not a top priority for the US president,” Park said. “Due to Korea’s strategic ambiguity, the Korea-US alliance could be reduced to a regional alliance tackling North Korea only.”

Hwang Jae-ho, a professor of international studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, was also cautious about placing high expectations on the Moon-Biden summit, but made it clear “it’s not a competition with Japan either.”

Even for Suga, it was a tough decision to make a direct reference to Taiwan, China’s most sensitive territorial issue, during the joint press conference with Biden. China rebuked Japan immediately, warning of retaliatory action. Some critics in Japan criticized Suga for going too far, considering Japan’s dependence on trade with China.

“Suga, a diplomatic novice, seemed well-prepared. Upping the ante against China or North Korea is helpful for a Japanese prime minister to elevate approval ratings at home,” Hwang said, predicting a limited impact from China’s retaliatory threats due to Japan’s huge domestic market.

“But South Korea’s situation is much more complicated than that of Japan, which is a fact both the US and China are well aware of,” he added. “Rather than losing their crucial partner in the region at all, both countries will continue to gauge the situation, adjusting the pressure level.”

As for the “Quad,” an informal strategic alliance consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia that aims to confront challenges from China, Park urged the South Korean government to join immediately in a clear sign of its alliance with the US. Meanwhile, Hwang said there is no need to rush when the US has not yet made an official request.

“There are not many things Moon can gain in the summit with Biden, especially at a time when inter- Korean relations have remained at a standstill,” Hwang said. “No serious confrontations between the two countries are expected at least under the two liberal presidents, except that time is running out for Moon, who is in his final year in office.”

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40000050

Can Multilateral Cooperation Coexist with Great-Power Rivalry?

Apr 21, 2021KEMAL DERVIŞ, SEBASTIÁN STRAUSS Recent US initiatives concerning new IMF special drawing rights, corporate taxation, and climate change highlight America’s renewed support for global cooperation. The big question now is whether multilateralism can work – and how China will respond to these proposals, given rising bilateral tensions.

WASHINGTON, DC nistration reengagement with the world and support for inclusive global multilateralism. The big question now, with– theThree United important States again recent seeking initiatives to play from an US international President Joe leadership Biden’s admi role, is whether such illustratecooperation America’s can work and how China will react to the US proposals, given rising bilateral tensions.

– special drawing rights (SDRs, the Internatio something that President The first major initiative was US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s call for a new $650 billion issuance of nal Monetary Fund’s reserve asset) – DetailsDonald ofTrump’s the plan administration, which has been had endorsed blocked. by the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors and the International Monetary and Financial Committee, are still to be worked out. It would not only involve a record new $650 billion SDR issuance to countries in proportion to their IMF quotas. It also calls on countries not needing these SDRs to reallocate them voluntarily to countries in need. For example, the US has suggested lending capacity. lending some of them to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust to boost the Fund’s concessional This is a big deal in at least two ways. A new $650 billion allocation would more than double the existing stock of SDRs, boosting global liquidity and freeing up resources for much-needed investment. And it could lead to large support from advanced economies to developing countries.

While any SDR reallocation would be voluntary, countries could go beyond a piecemeal approach to develop a more coordinated mechanism. For example, the US proposal could be extended to routinize donor finance concessional loans to developing economies. In addition, the plan could involve the establishment of a new special purpose governments’vehicle to attract contributions private-sector to institutions resources. such as multilateral development banks to

China supports the proposed new SDR allocation, but it remains to be seen whether it will agree with the US and other advanced economies on the implementation details and reallocate some of its own SDRs in a coordinated multilateral manner. It will also be interesting to see what role the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank may play in such a scheme.

A second major US proposal would allow countries to tax the largest and most profitable multinational corporations (many of which are American) based on their sales in each country, regardless of physical presence, and would set a global minimum corporate-tax rate of 21%. The Financial Times reported on April 8 that the US Treasury floated the idea with the 135 countries involved in OECD/G20 discussions on so-called base erosion and profit shifting.

The proposed regulations would be binding for large companies in all sectors, depending on their level of revenue and profit margins. Reaching a global agreement will be difficult, but it would allow Biden to raise US corporate tax rates to pay for planned infrastructure investments without being undercut internationally and end the race to the bottom that has characterized corporate taxation for decades. The OECD framework provides another opportunity for US-China multilateral cooperation on one of the most important and sensitive global economic policy issues.

Lastly, Biden has invited 40 world leaders to a virtual climate summit on April 22-23, which will be streamed live to the public. The attendees include the leaders of 17 major greenhouse-gas (GHG) emitters, as well as those from other countries that are especially vulnerable to climate change. A small number of business and civil-society leaders will also participate. are “demonstrating strong climate leadership” and innovative approaches or

The Biden administration endorses the goals of achieving global net-zero GHG emissions by 2050 and limiting global warming close to 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels, while emphasizing the need for more ambitious emission-reduction targets by 2030 than what countries pledged under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Most advanced economies, now including the US, are preparing strategies aimed at ace stiff Republican opposition.

Butmeeting the world global will climate not achieve goals, although net-zero Biden’s emissions, ambitious or close plans to it, will by 2050 f without China and the emerging economies as a whole immediately embarking on similar trajectories. They currently account for almost two- thirds of global CO2emissions from fuel combustion, with China alone responsible for almost 30%. Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged that China would become carbon neutral before 2060, but did not outline plans (especially regarding coal production and expansion of its oil and gas pipeline network) are inconsistenta concrete with this strategy target. for achieving that goal. Most analysts agree that the country’s current policies and

Biden has invited Xi to the upcoming summit. US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, who has said visited China in an attempt joint statementhe that, is “hopeful while positive [but] not in confident” tone, is short of Chinese on detailed cooperation commitments. in tackling climate change, recently to enlist the country’s support for a successful April summit. Both countries issued a

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-china-cooperation-on-climate-corporate-tax-and- sdrs-by-kemal-dervis-and-sebastian-strauss-2021-04

After Xi: Future Scenarios for Leadership Succession in Post-Xi Jinping Era

April 21, 2021

After nearly nine years in office, Xi Jinping now stands as the overwhelmingly dominant figure in China’s political system, having gained command of the military, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatus, and diplomatic and economic policymaking, all while sidelining or locking up rivals to his leadership. His drive for power, however, has destabilized elite political consensus and dismantled power-sharing norms that evolved since the 1980s. By removing de jure term limits on the office of the presidency—and thus far refusing to nominate his successor for this and his other leadership positions— Xi has solidified his own authority at the expense of the most important political reform of the last four decades: the regular and peaceful transfer of power. In doing so, he has pushed China toward a potential destabilizing succession crisis, one with profound implications for the international order and global commerce.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/after-xi-future-scenarios-leadership-succession-post-xi-jinping-era

Philippines says boosting maritime presence to protect territory, resources Reuters 3 minutes read

Philippine Coast Guard personnel are seen onboard a rubber boat as they sail near Chinese vessels believed to be manned by Chinese maritime militia personnel at Whitsun Reef, South China Sea, in a handout photo distributed by the Philippine Coast Guard April 15 and taken according to the source either on April 13 or 14, 2021. Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via REUTERS

The Philippines is beefing up its presence in the South China Sea and deploying more ships and an aircraft to protect its maritime territory and resources, a government task force said on Wednesday.

The Philippines has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks in defiance of what it says is threatening behaviour by Chinese vessels in its 200- mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), despite four years of rapprochement with historic rival China.

"We are exhausting all means possible to protect our territory and EEZ," the Philippines' South China Sea task force said in a statement.

The deployment is the latest move in an ongoing feud with China over what Manila called "swarming" by hundreds of fishing vessels it said were manned by Chinese state-backed militias. China has denied militias were aboard.

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered authorities to continue "sovereignty patrols", and intensify operations against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in its territorial waters, the task force said. Nine vessels from the coastguard and the fisheries bureau, a coastguard aircraft and police watercraft and rubber boats were being deployed in the South China Sea, including in waters off Philippine- held islands in the Spratlys, the task force said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippines-says-boosting-maritime-presence-protect- territory-resources-2021-04-21/

Philippines poised to increase its presence in South China Sea amid tensions with Beijing

• The Philippines has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks in defiance of what it says is threatening behaviour by Chinese vessels in its exclusive economic zone • Nine vessels, a coastguard aircraft and police watercraft and rubber boats were being deployed in the South China Sea, including in waters near the Spratlys

territorial disputes

Asia’sThe Philippines is expanding its presence in the South China Sea and deploying more ships and an aircraft to protect its maritime territory and resources, a government task force said on Wednesday. The Philippines has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks in defiance of what it says is threatening behaviour by Chinese vessels in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), despite four years of rapprochement with historic rival China. task force said in a statement. “We are exhausting all means possible to protect our territory and EEZ,” the Philippines’ South China Sea

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3130478/philippines-poised-increase-its- presence-south-china-sea

PH sends more ships, planes for increased patrols in West PH Sea

Published April 21, 2021, 5:28 PM by Martin Sadongdong Additional government assets were deployed in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) to increase the country’s sovereignty patrols, a task force monitoring the developments in the tension- filled waters bared Wednesday, April 21.

(Photo courtesy of Philippine Coast Guard / FILE PHOTO)

The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) said it has coordinated for the deployment of four Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels, one PCG aircraft, five Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) vessels for WPS maritime patrols, and Philippine National Police – Maritime Group (PNP-MG) high-speed tactical watercraft and rubber boats for maritime law enforcement in the coastal areas.

“In compliance with the directive of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to sustain our sovereignty patrols in the WPS, increase safety of life at sea operations, and [intensify] operations against illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing (IUUF), the NTF-WPS has coordinated for the deployment of more assets under the control of its Area Task Forces (ATF),” said NTF-WPS spokesperson Omar Romero.

The NTF-WPS has established two area forces to safeguard the features and interests of the country in the WPS, namely; the Area Task Force West (ATF-West) and Area Task Force North (ATF-North).

The ATF-West, being led by the military’s Western Command (WestCom), maintains nine island detachments in Kalayaan, Palawan with the biggest contingent at Pag-asa Island, the seat of the municipality. It also covers the Malampaya Gas Field and the resource-rich Recto Bank.

Meanwhile, the ATF-North, being led by the Northern Luzon Command (NoLCom), covers Bajo de Masinloc, the islands north of Cagayan, Batanes, the Philippine Rise, and the latter’s Extended Continental Shelf (ECS). ATF-North also maintains detachments on the islands of Batanes. In a separate Kapihan sa Manila Bay Forum, Assistant Secretary Carmina Acuna, head of the National Security Council’s Policy and Special Studies Office, said a total of 14 vessels and five aircraft have been patrolling in the areas covered by the ATF-West, and eight vessels and six aircraft in areas covered by the ATF-North.

The deployment of more assets in the WPS came as a response by the government to the continued intrusion of more than 240 Chinese vessels in the WPS.

“The NTF-WPS is resolute in upholding Philippine sovereignty over our territory as mandated by the Constitution, and protecting our sovereign rights over our EEZ [exclusive economic zone] in accordance with international law,” Romero said.

https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/21/ph-sends-more-ships-planes-for-increased-patrols-in-west-ph-sea/

PH Navy eyes tie-up with Turkey for modernization efforts

By Priam Nepomuceno April 21, 2021, 9:46 am

(Photo courtesy of Turkey Ministry of National Defense)

MANILA – The Philippine Navy (PN) is exploring ways to collaborate with the Turkish government in its ongoing modernization efforts, its chief said Tuesday night.

"The objective of the visit was for the PN to explore methods of collaboration with the Turkish government in terms of pursuing current and future modernization efforts," Vice Adm. Giovanni Carlo Bacordo said in a message to the Philippine News Agency (PNA) when asked regarding the visit of a PN delegation to Turkey last week.

Bacordo said the delegation’s visit was at the invitation of the Askeri Fabrika ve Tersane İşletme, Military Factory, and Shipyard Management (ASFAT, Inc.), a state-owned defense contractor that is directly under Turkey's Defense Ministry.

"The visit was also an opportunity for the Turkish government to showcase their defense capabilities to us through ASFAT, the Turkish Navy, and other agencies," he said.

The ASFAT develops, manages, and uses the facilities and capabilities of the 27 ordnance factories and three public naval shipyards in Turkey.

"They are particularly interested in providing capability and technology solutions and be able to participate in the different acquisition projects for naval vessels and other defense equipment. Their main selling point is their centuries-old and proven shipyard capability that guarantees the quality of work and long-term integrated logistics support," he said.

Bacordo, meanwhile, noted that the successful engagement with the Turkish Navy is perceived as a significant opportunity that would jumpstart future cooperation in maritime security through naval exercises, personnel exchanges, and education and training, among others. (PNA)

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137465 Analyst questions government commitment to West PH Sea

ABS-CBN News Posted at Apr 21 2021 11:14 PM

The Philippines' National Security Adviser said the country's territorial rights in the West Philippine Sea will not be traded away for improved relations with China.

But one analyst believes otherwise. — The World Tonight, ANC, April 21, 2020

Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers spied on US, European targets: cybersecurity expert

• FireEye says two highly skilled hacking groups breached Pulse Connect Secure devices to hit government agencies and defence firms • US Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency issues alert saying it was aware of ‘ongoing exploitation’

Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers exploited widely used networking devices to spy for months on dozens of high-value government, defence industry and financial sector targets in the United States and Europe, according to FireEye, a prominent cybersecurity

firm.FireEye said it believed two hacking groups linked to China broke into several targets through Pulse Connect Secure devices, which numerous companies and governments use for secure remote access to their networks.

After FireEye released a blog post detailing its findings on Tuesday, the US Department of Homeland

criticalSecurity’s infrastru Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an alert saying it was aware of details“ongoing about exploitation” which organisations of Pulse Connect were breached.Secure that was “compromising US government agencies, cture entities and private sector organisations”. The agency did not provide additional https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3130406/suspected-state-backed-chinese- hackers-spied-us-european

China-linked hackers used VPN flaw to target U.S. defense industry -researchers Christopher BingRaphael Satter 4 minutes read

1/2 U.S. Department of Homeland Security emblem is pictured at the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) located just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia September 24, 2010. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang Read More At least two groups of China-linked hackers have spent months using a previously undisclosed vulnerability in American virtual private networking devices to spy on the U.S. defense industry, researchers and the devices' manufacturer said Tuesday.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-linked-hackers-used-pulse-secure-flaw-target-us-defense- industry-2021-04-20/

Chinese firm claims new stealth drone may rival US -21 Raider

• Zhongtian Feilong has made a prototype it says could be used for precision strikes and Air Force’sas part of a swarmB for surveillance • Developer says it is close to the American aircraft on speed, attack range, payload and stealth but cheaper to make and could last longer

A Chinese drone maker says it has manufactured a prototype unmanned stealth aircraft that it claims could rival the B-21 Raider being developed for the US Air Force.

Zhongtian Feilong Intelligent Technology, based in Xian, said in a statement on its WeChat social media account on Tuesday that the Feilong-2 or Flying Dragon-2 prototype had recently been completed.

It said the multirole high-subsonic unmanned– aerial vehicle –could be used for precision strikes on key assets such as enemy command centres, military airstrips and aircraft carriers.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3130471/chinese-firm-claims-new-stealth-drone- may-rival-us-air-forces-b

China showcases high-tech radar at Expo 2021

Exhibits cover military radar systems, civil radars and related equipment for aerospace, shipping, meteorology and rescue

By DAVE MAKICHUKAPRIL 21, 2021 Print

The JF-17 Block III fighter jet is expected to be equipped with the KLJ- 7A. The jet has aready begun prototype tests and is expected to enter batch production soon. Credit: Ministry of Defense.

China’s progress in the field of early warning radars — including radars that can reportedly detect stealth aircraft — are on display this week at the World Radar Expo 2021 in Nanjing, Global Times reported.

Jointly hosted by the China Radar Industry Association, the China Electronics Technology Group Co. Ltd. (CETC) and the China Electronics Information Industry Group Co. Ltd.(CEC), the ninth World Radar Expo will feature the country’s cutting-edge radar technologies.

With more than 500 companies from the radar and electronics industry participating, the scale of this year’s expo will be larger than all previous editions.

The exhibits cover military radar systems, as well as civil radars and related equipment for aerospace, aviation, shipping, detection, meteorology, rescue and so on. As one of the major exhibiting companies, CETC will showcase a series of advanced radar technologies, including a new type of highly mobile anti-stealth radar designed to detect low altitude, slow speed and small targets with the longest range in the world.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/china-boasts-portable-anti-stealth-radar-at-expo-2021/

US-China tech war: semiconductor supply chain risks a worry for both sides

• US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the country’s lack of semiconductor production was a ‘national security risk and an economic security risk’ • China will encourage private and foreign entities to invest more in its semiconductor industry to strengthen the country’s supply chain, an MIIT official said

Beijing and Washington are waging a tech war on multiple fronts, but they have found common ground on one thing: their respective lack of domestic production capability in semiconductors is a worrying risk amid the global chip shortage.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the country was facing a deficiency

“crisis” over its lack of semiconductor production, calling the “a national security risk and an economic security risk”, according to a report from Bloomberg.

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3130437/us-china-tech-war-semiconductor-supply- chain-risks-worry-both

Commander Says Africa Is Too Important for Americans to Ignore

A P R I L 21, 2021 | BY JIM G A R A M O N E , D O D N E W S Africa is a fascinating continent of tremendous possibilities but also tremendous dangers, and the U.S. ignores the nations of Africa at its own peril, the commander of the U.S. Africa Command said during an interview.

"China and Russia don't ignore Africa, and that alone should say something," Army Gen. Stephen J. Townsend said.

Africa has 13 of the 25 fastest growing economies in the world, Townsend said. In a time of climate change, Africa has 60% of the arable land on the globe. "This fact alone should show how important Africa is for the world," he added.

The continent also has a plethora of strategic materials, such as cobalt, chromium, tantalum and more. African resources are critical to 21st century progress.

Africa has a growing population, and demographers estimate that by 2050 one in four people on Earth will be African.

The country is also a crossroads of the world. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait between Djibouti and Yemen is a choke point at the southern end of the Red Sea. There is another choke point between Sicily and Libya. The Strait of Gibraltar is between Europe and Africa. The recent blockage of the Suez Canal threw light onto two more choke points: the Mozambique Channel and the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Townsend said. These sea lines of communication are vital around the globe and are ever in Townsend's mind as he engages the nations of the continent. A number of Africa countries are among the "most fragile" in the world, Townsend said. These countries have ungoverned or little governed areas that attract violent extremist organizations, which capitalize on economic and political dysfunction to extend their reach.

He said governments in these areas need help. "An African leader once said to me 'A drowning man will reach for any hand,'" Townsend said. "They are drowning in poverty and will take help from whomever it comes from."

This offers a perfect opening for Russia and particularly China, Townsend said. "The Chinese sometimes refer to Africa as their 'second continent,' and some Chinese military leaders refer to the east coast of Africa as China's 'fifth island chain,'" the general said.

China has its first overseas military base in Djibouti and has invested heavily in ports around the continent, he said. The Chinese are playing a long game on the continent. The Chinese Communist Party wants to change the international rules-based architecture to favor China.

Economic pressure on African nations could gather votes in the United Nations and in other world bodies to do just that. Maybe not tomorrow, but some day.

https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2580930/commander-says-africa-is-too- important-for-americans-to-ignore/

- grade plutonium, warns US commander China’s new nuclear reactors could yield weapons • The country is developing fast breeder reactors as it seeks to reduce dependence on coal, but they can produce material with potential for military use • The US Strategic Command head says this will ‘change the upper bounds of what China could choose to do’ in terms of expanding its nuclear capabilities

A new generation of nuclear power facilities that China is developing could produce large amounts of plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons, the head of the US Strategic Command warned lawmakers this week.

China is developing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities as it seeks to reduce dependence on coal, a top source of carbon emissions. But the plants also produce plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

The first fast breeder reactor is projected to come on line in 2023.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3130518/chinas-new-nuclear- reactors-could-yield-weapons

New cyber-hardening mandates may be coming for defense firms Joe Gould

Washington seems likely to take steps requiring the defense industrial base better harden against cyber attacks, two veterans of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission said Wednesday. (Getty Images) WASHINGTON ― Washington seems likely to take steps requiring the defense industrial base to better harden against cyberattacks, two veterans of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission said Wednesday.

Speaking at the C4ISRNET Conference, the commission’s executive director, Mark Montgomery, said he foresees the panel’s recommendations that the Pentagon make cyber intelligence sharing and threat-hunting capabilities mandatory for suppliers will “kick into effect.”

“There’s [recommended] language in legislation that allows the [defense] secretary once he’s had a successful report to start taking action on both the threat hunting and information sharing, so I’m excited to see that happen,” Montgomery said.

Congress, in its 2021 defense authorization law, required reports into the feasibility of those requirements. Erica Borghard, a former task force leader with the commission, also told conference-goers she was looking to the reports to tee up further action.

The comments came as the Biden administration responds to Russia’s recent SolarWinds breach, a sprawling, months-long cyberespionage effort that reportedly struck nine federal agencies, along with dozens of private-sector companies. Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office reported that the Pentagon had improved cybersecurity for weapons platforms but still struggled to outline cybersecurity requirements in contracts for weapon systems.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/digital-show-dailies/c4isr-conference/2021/04/21/new-defense-industrial- base-cyber-hardening-requirements-likely/

Indo-Pacific commander Aquilino confirmed in Senate

By: Joe Gould 12 hours ago

9

Adm. John C. "Lung" Aquilino pays respect during the 78th anniversary Pearl Harbor remembrance commemoration on Dec. 7 in Hawaii. (MC3 Aja B. Jackson/Navy) WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Senate confirmed a new chief for Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. John C. Aquilino, by unanimous consent Wednesday. Aquilino, the former head of U.S. Pacific Fleet, told lawmakers at his Senate confirmation hearing last month that he thinks China is viewing an annexation of Taiwan as its “No. 1 priority.” “The rejuvenation of the Chinese Communist Party is at stake,” with regard to Taiwan, Aquilino said. He added that “the status of the United States as a partner with our allies and partners also is at stake, should we have a conflict in Taiwan.” Aquilino declined to affirm the assessment China could try to invade Taiwan in as little as six years (which outgoing commander Adm. Phil Davidson has said). However, Aquilino acknowledged “this problem is much closer to us than most think,” and that it requires a proposed Pacific Deterrence Initiative funding pool be realized, “in the near term, and with urgency.”

A report from the command delivered last month calls for roughly $27 billion in additional spending between 2022 and 2027; with $4.6 billion for fiscal year 2022 alone. That includes a multi-billion-dollar air defense capability in .

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/04/21/indo-pacific-commander-aquilino-confirmed-in- senate/

CONVENTIONAL DETERRENCE AND THE U.S. NAVY: WHY THE FUTURE NEEDS TO HAPPEN NOW, PT. II

APRIL 21, 2021 GUEST AUTHOR 1 COMMENT

Read Part One here. By Adam Taylor

The challenges posed by China’s offensive deterrence paradigm require a new and innovative future force design for the US Navy. China’s deterrence model prizes confrontation and escalation in order to stop its neighbors from pursuing an unwelcome course of action, and, ultimately, force the target of its deterrent behavior to favor Beijing’s interests. This operating environment requires the US Navy to move from a fleet better suited for conventional war to an architecture that can succeed in a traditional great power conflict and countering Chinese deterrent behavior in the grey zone.

A closer exploration of the US Navy’s response and involvement in deterring general war and Chinese aggression short of war in a Taiwan scenario demonstrates both the challenges confronting the current fleet and a possible force design roadmap the service can follow moving forward.

Any assessment of this question requires understanding Beijing’s interests in Taiwan and the range of behavior China might pursue to achieve its desired outcomes. In turn, this clarifies both the range of Chinese military behavior American forces must be prepared to deter and defend against, and whether current US force posture in the region meets those demands.

Beijing’s most recent defense white paper makes clear that its overwhelming interest in Taiwan remains the islands reunification and incorporation into the PRC polity. China maintains numerous other interests in the island, however, and could employ a variety of deterrent stratagems to prevent Taiwan from pursuing various political ends at odds with Beijing’s preferences. Examples of China’s other interests could include deterring or reversing a “declaration of independence;” preventing Taiwan from developing nuclear weapons; compelling the abandonment of a military access agreement to US forces; deterring Taiwan’s electorate from pursuing an “independence-minded” course or influencing its electorate not to support candidates favoring such a course; compelling Taiwan to abandon sovereignty claims in the East China Sea (ECS); and forcing Taiwan to accept reunification.

https://cimsec.org/conventional-deterrence-and-the-u-s-navy-why-the-future-needs-to-happen-now- pt-ii/

U.S. commanders seek approval for aircraft carrier near Afghanistan during withdrawal

Reuters

2 minutes read

Top U.S. military commanders are seeking Pentagon approval to deploy an aircraft carrier near landlocked Afghanistan to help protect troops during their withdrawal from the country in coming months, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-commanders-seek-approval-aircraft-carrier-near- afghanistan-during-withdrawal-2021-04-21/

Huge Navy Exercise Helps Admirals Decide How to Remake Fleet

“We are going to do a live-fire offensive exercise,” Rear Adm. Jim Aiken, Carrier Strike Group 3 commander told reporters Tuesday. “We are going to use the unmanned surface, unmanned air, and manned air and surface to provide a targeting solution.”

By PAUL MCLEARYon April 21, 2021 at 4:47 PM

The unmanned ships Seahawk, front, and Sea Hunter launch for the Pacific Fleet’s Unmanned Systems Integrated Battle Problem 21 WASHINGTON: A fleet of destroyers, unmanned ships and drones are working off the coast stand how to develop a planned autonomous fleet of the future. of California in the Navy’s largest attempt to under One of the most anticipated aspects of the exercise will be to conduct live fire launches from one of the destroyers at a target identified by a drone from over the horizon, proving out at least an initial capability to use unmanned ships as a surveillance asset.

- r Strike

“We are going to do a live fire offensive exercise,” Rear Adm. Jim Aiken, Carrie going to use the unmanned surface, unmanned air, and manned air and surface to provide a Group 3 commander and one of the exercise’s leaders told reporters Tuesday. “We are e that does the shooting. targeting solution,” that will feed information back to a ship or submarin

Aiken would not discuss the type of missile or which ship would fire the potentially killing blow, though the Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado is equipped with a Harpoon missile launcher. The LCS Fort Worth is also participating, along with four Arleigh Burke destroyers and the Zumwalt-class USS Michael Monsoor, all of which can launch a variety of missiles from their vertical launch tubes. The USS Hampton attack submarine, which will be prowling under the surface, is also a potential shooter.

The amphibious transport dock USS Anchorage is also taking part in the exercise, with P-8A Poseidon and EA-18 Growler electronic warfare aircraft flying overhead.

to keep options open. I think we want to be able to look at different ways to produce results [with] When pressed about which platform would do the shooting, Aiken said “we want

Thethe number exercise of will unmanned include the systems Super that Swarm we have.”project, a secretive Office of Naval Research effort to operate swarms of small drones, and the MQ-8B Fire Scout UAV launched from a Littoral Combat Ship, as well as the MQ-9 Sea Guardian UAV. The Fire Scout and Sea Guardian will integrate with both Navy and Marine Corps units.

That expected reliance on a variety of systems that are in various states of development, as opposed to developing specific ships that have specific capabilities bolted on, is a change from the way the Navy has developed new classes of ships in the past.

The service appears to have learned some less -billion

ons from it’s recent multi to figure out where and how to fit them into the fleet after much of their initial promise embarrassments in building the LCS and Zumwalt destroyers, which they’re now working faded away.

The effort to build new large and type of hull that surveillance and strike capabilities will be bolted on to, but rather medium unmanned ships isn’t so much focused on the leadership is looking to develop those capabilities and then find ships that can accommodate them.

“We want to move from just systems to capabilities,” Aiken said. When those capabilities that information a are identified and tested, that will “give us an advantage where we now are able to take This falls in line withnd we’rethe path able forward to move Chief it at of speed.” Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday outlined earlier this month, when he said the current exercise would “further inform our understanding of where we need to go with unmanned. Particularly the capabilities and w ships that would require. then eventually the numbers,” of ne -ship f “It’s easy to get seduced by the numbers, and we shouldn’t,” Gilday said, breaking need to be focused on is capabilities, and particularly what capabilities the Navy can close somewhat from his predecessors’ sole focus on building a 355 leet. “What we really

for the joint force,” he added. The goal is to find “capabilities that then translate into

Thatplatforms.” approach is likely partially based on previous issues with getting systems to work on ship classes that were a with flat budgets going forward, there simply might not be the money available to expand the fleet lready being built, but it’s also a realization that the way the Navy has said it wants to.

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/huge-navy-exercise-helps-admirals-decide-how-to-remake-fleet/

JUST IN: Navy Information Warfare Leader Says IT Adoption Too Slow 4/21/2021 By Yasmin Tadjdeh

Information-technology systems have “exploded” in use over the past 20 years, but the U.S. military has been too slow to adopt them effectively, said the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare and director of naval intelligence April 21.

“I don't think we keep up with the industry opportunities,” said Vice Adm. Jeffrey Trussler. “We write requirements and we send them out, let industry compete. [But] boy, that's an unsatisfying process sometimes when we have trouble taking advantage of and seeing opportunity because we didn't identify it as a requirement.”

The Defense Department has been “a little slower” than other organizations in leveraging some technologies, he noted during remarks at C4ISRNET’s annual conference, which was held virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Many senior officers were trained and brought up in an environment that was platform- and firepower-centric, he said. That has required them to shift their thinking as information warfare becomes more prevalent.

“If I had one message today [it’s that] we recognize that now,” Trussler said. “Now we're figuring out what's the best and fastest way we can catch back up to the great innovation and technology that's going on that’s available right now in the United States.”

The services are gung-ho about IT-related efforts such as joint all-domain command and control, which is envisioned as an internet of things for the military, he said. The Navy’s contribution to the effort, known as Project Overmatch, was established by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday in October. The Army’s JADC2 effort is known as Project Convergence and the Air Force’s is the Advanced Battle Management System.

“If we were to start from ground zero and say, ‘We're going to order 300 ships and a couple of thousand aircraft, and we need to connect them together,’ we would design that in to be seamless, rolling off the assembly line immediately ready to integrate across all platforms, sensors, weapons, C2 nodes,” Trussler said. “We could do that. But we're not starting there. We're starting with the fleet we have.”

Many of the Navy's communication systems are hamstrung by limitations build into the hardware, he noted.

“Because of the way we may have designed some things, a lot of mil specs and unique solutions, the ability to just even upgrade the software sometimes can be challenging,” he added.

The Navy needs to move to platforms that are software defined that can allow it upgrade systems seamlessly, he said.

The sea service has put in place a three-to-five-year plan in support of Project Overmatch that will offer improvements, Trussler said.

“We're taking existing capabilities and with some minor tweaks and upgrades, we're going to have a prompt increase in our capability to communicate across past tactical data links and sensor data than we have today,” he said.

As work continues with Project Overmatch, the Navy is keeping jointness in mind, he noted.

Whatever is developed has “got to be in alignment with the other services, so that even across the services we're seamlessly operating and integrating together,” Trussler said.

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/4/21/just-in-military-must-speed-up-it- acquisition-process

Marines: Limited AAV Operations on Water Resume As Vehicle Inspections, Unit Certifications Required in Fatal Sinking Aftermath

By: Gidget Fuentes April 21, 2021 4:42 PM

Marines with Marine Rotational Force-Europe 21.1, Marine Forces Europe and Africa, conduct a safety of use memorandum (SOUM) on an assault amphibious vehicle in preparation for Exercise Reindeer II, Reindeer I, and Joint Viking in Setermoen, Norway, Nov. 19, 2020. US Marine Corps Photo

Amphibious assault vehicle crews at Camp Pendleton, Calif., recently put their amtracs back in the water, the first operational unit to do so after the Marine Corps lifted a suspension that has been in place since deadly mishap off Southern California. last year’s

I Marine Expeditionary Force “met all the criteria to continue and resume waterborne operations,” Capt. Andrew Wood, a Marine Corps spokesman at theThe Pentagon, resumption told does USNI not News. authorize “Other ship- unitsto are-shore working or shore- to meetto-ship that.”

“ movements,”The Marine Corps, Wood in said. an April 9 decision, gave the green light for units that have met a series of conditions including inspections and certifications to conduct waterborne operations, which were halted nine months ago after eight Marines and one Navy– corpsman died when an AAV sank July 30,– 2020, as it returned to a Navy amphibious ship off San Clemente Island. In the following months, amtracs were limited to land-based operations. Only the Assault Amphibian School, which is located at Camp Pendleton and trains new and returning AAV crew members, got waivers for limited operations to support military occupational specialty qualification, according to Wood. three-star approval. Any waivers for “operational necessity” had to get a -wide April ability“The restriction to meet requisite on AAV waterbornecondition operations was lifted Corps 9,” Wood told USNI News on Wednesday. “However, it is based on a unit’s Any unit operating AAVs must haves.” performed and been certified in 18 tasks cover a variety of requirements from ensuring training and qualificationstasks by the first for generalcrew and officer embarked in their personnel, chain of command, personnel heare said. properly “The 18 equipped, vehicles have passed required inspections, and operations are conducted with safety boats, sea-state assessments and positive

communication.” Wood said. As of March 4, I MEF; the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based II MEF; TrainingAs of April and 20, Education “more than Command 350 AAVs at have Quantico, passed Va.; required and the inspectio Amphibins,”ous -percent compliant with the i o apply to the Assault CombatVehicle TestVehicle Branch that atis beingCamp testedPendleton by AVTB “are 100and will replace the 1970s-era amtracs.nspections,” Wood said. The requirements als

Japan-based III MEF, Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Corps Logistics ctive actions are ongoing to bring the remai waterCommand prior “continue to compliance to inspect. of the Corre inspection criteria. Currently, ship-to- shore nderand shore- of the tofleet- into compliance,” Wood said. “No AAV will enter the

A command investigation,ship operations ordered by remain Marine suspended.” Corps Forces Pacific, found a series of failures to follow standard procedures and practices along the entire chain of command and assigned various levels of blame for the mishap and deaths. Several commanders subsequently were fired.– The command investigation also– noted 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion gave the AAV platoon vehicles that were in poor condition just a few months before the platoon began training with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group for a scheduled deployment.

The day after the mishap, the Marine Corps ordered all waterborne operations on hiatus and directed both a broad review of its AAV inventory and an in-depth inspections of every vehicle in its AAV fleet. A Naval Safety Center investigation also got underway and typically is not released to the public.

https://news.usni.org/2021/04/21/marines-limited-aav-operations-on-water-resume-as-vehicle- inspections-unit-certifications-required-in-fatal-sinking-aftermath

US spy planes keep close eye on China amid live-fire military exercises

• American aircraft goes unusually near naval base on east coast, think tank says • Patrols also carried out over disputed South China Sea, with aircraft going dark around Paracels, it says

Liu Zhen in Beijing

A US spy plane buzzed the Chinese coast this week, one of several warplanes deployed close to Chinese territorial waters amid live-fire exercises by the PLA Navy, according to a think tank.

The Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative said a US Air Force RC-135W electronic reconnaissance aircraft made an unusually close flight along China’s eastern coast on Tuesday, coming within 40 nautical miles of Qingdao, the headquarters of Liberation Army Navy’s North Sea Fleet.An RC-135W and a P-8A anti-submarine aircraft also patrolled the South China Sea on Wednesday during live-fire exercises in the disputed waters, according to the People’sthink tank.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3130500/us-spy-planes-keep-close-eye-china- amid-live-fire-military

Government to Shell Out $15 Billion for Hypersonics

4/21/2021 By Jon Harper Between fiscal years 2015 and 2024, federal agencies will have spent about $15 billion on hypersonic weapons and related technologies, according to projections by a watchdog group.

The Government Accountability Office has identified 70 efforts across the Defense Department, Department of Energy and NASA, according to its recent report, “Hypersonic Weapons: DoD Should Clarify Roles and Responsibilities to Ensure Coordination Across Development Efforts.”

“DoD accounts for nearly all of this” $15 billion in projected spending during the aforementioned 10-year period, the study said. “The majority of the funding is for product development and potential fielding of prototype offensive hypersonic weapons. Additionally, it includes substantial investments in developing technologies for next-generation hypersonic weapons and a smaller proportion aimed at countering hypersonic threats.”

The Air Force, Army and Navy are all pursuing these types of capabilities, and other agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have been involved in advancing the technology.

“Hypersonic weapon systems are technically complex, and the DoD has attempted to address challenges posed by immature technologies and aggressive schedules by pursuing multiple potential technological solutions so that it has options,” the study noted.

However, there is room for improvement, according to GAO.

The Defense Department “has not documented the roles, responsibilities and authorities of the multitude of its organizations, including the military services, that are working on” these capabilities, the report said. As a result, “DoD is at risk of impeding its progress toward delivering hypersonic weapon capabilities and opening up the potential for conflict and wasted resources as decisions over larger investments are made in the future.” To address this problem, the secretary of defense should define and document the roles, responsibilities and authorities of the leadership positions and organizations in the department responsible for the development and acquisition of hypersonics, GAO recommended. The Pentagon concurred with the recommendation, according to the report.

Dr. Mark J. Lewis, executive director of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute, said the Pentagon has made remarkable advances and is getting closer to fielding systems.

“We can always improve the technology, but at this point I honestly believe our remaining challenges are more policy and infrastructure than technical,” he told National Defense. “We know hypersonic systems work. Now it’s just a matter of being able to design, test and deploy these systems in a timely and efficient manner.”

— Additional reporting by Stew Magnuson https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/4/21/government-to-shell-out-15-billion-for- hypersonics

NASA's Perseverance rover just turned CO2 into oxygen. The technology could help future astronauts breathe on Mars.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen 3 hours ago

Technicians in the cleanroom at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory lower the MOXIE instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover. NASA/JPL-Caltech • NASA's Perseverance rover carried an oxygen-producing experiment called MOXIE to Mars. • MOXIE converted carbon dioxide from Mars' atmosphere into oxygen for the first time on Tuesday. • Future astronauts will need to produce their own oxygen on Mars to breathe and fuel rockets. • See more stories on Insider's business page.

NASA sent the Perseverance rover to Mars with some bonus technology: a device that can turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, much like trees do on Earth.

The device, called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), pulled carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere to produce its first oxygen on Tuesday. It's a small amount — 5.4 grams, enough to keep an astronaut healthy for 10 minutes — but it's proof that the technology works on the red planet.

That's good news for the prospect of sending human explorers to Mars. Oxygen takes up a lot of room on a spacecraft, and it's very unlikely that astronauts will be able to bring enough with them to Mars. So they'll need to produce their own oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, both for breathing and for fueling rockets to return to Earth.

https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-perseverance-rover-moxie-device-turns-carbon-dioxide- into-oxygen-2021-4

Report to Congress on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems

April 21, 2021 8:44 AM

The following is the April 19, 2021 Congressional Research Service report, International Discussions Concerning Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. From the report

Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), or weapons designed to independently select and engage targets without the need for manual human control, could enable military operations in communications- degraded or -denied environments where traditional systems may not be able to operate. LAWS are not yet in widespread development. However, as technology advances particularly artificial intelligence (AI) a larger number of countries may consider developing and operating LAWS. This could hold potential implications— for congressional oversight,— defense investments, military concepts of operations, treaty-making, and the future of warfare.

As has been the case throughout history, incorporation of new technology into weapons systems creates a number of potential legal, ethical, strategic, and operational problems. For this reason, some members of the international community seek through international discussions to constrain if not ban LAWS.

What Are— LAWS? —

Definitions. No single, universally accepted definition of LAWS is used in international discussions. However, Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, which establishes U.S. policy on autonomy in weapons systems,

This defines LAWS as “weapon system[s] that, once activated, can select and regardengage totargets target without selection further and engagement intervention decisions. by a human operator.” definition’s principal characteristic is the role of the human operator with Other countries such as the United Kingdom, however, have grounded their definition of LAWS on different characteristics, in particular the technological sophistication of the weapon system, such that LAWS are considered to be weapon systems capable of human-level cognition. Still others do not believe that a definition of LAWS is required or desirable for international discussions. Despite these differences, most parties to the LAWS discussions generally agree that the defining features— of LAWS — include full autonomy (no manual human control of the system) and the potential to produce lethal effects.

Status. Although the pursuit of LAWS is not yet widespread, some analysts munition manufacturer, IAI, describes as being fully autonomous qualifies. Israel hashave exported argued that the HarpyIsrael’s to Harpy Chile, loitering China, India, South—which Korea, andthe weapon’sTurkey. Similarly, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has noted— that Chinese manufacturer Ziyan has advertised a fully autonomous system, the Blowfish A3 helicopter drone, which it has reportedly exported to the Middle East. In addition, according to a report by the Defense Innovation Board, the United States developed LAWS during the 1980s but no longer has LAWS in its inventory.

https://news.usni.org/2021/04/21/report-to-congress-on-lethal-autonomous-weapon-systems-2

International Discussions Concerning Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems

Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), or weapons designed to independently select and engage targets without the need for manual human control, could enable military operations in communications-degraded or -denied environments where traditional systems may not be able to operate. LAWS are not yet in widespread development. However, as technology advances—particularly artificial intelligence (AI)—a larger number of countries may consider developing and operating LAWS. This could hold potential implications for congressional oversight, defense investments, military concepts of operations, treaty-making, and the future of warfare. As has been the case throughout history, incorporation of new technology into weapons systems creates a number of potential legal, ethical, strategic, and operational problems. For this reason, some members of the international community seek through internation.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20685390/if11294.pdf

A Target-Rich Environment The Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Talks about Rogue Actors, Great Power Competition, and Today’s Technology Race. By Vice Admiral Jon A. Hill, U.S. Navy April 2021

Proceedings recently interviewed Navy Vice Admiral Jon A. Hill, Director, Missile Defense Agency. He provides valuable insights into the current state of the missile threats to the United States, its allies, and U.S. military forces deployed around the world. Proceedings: A decade or two ago, it seemed that the focus for U.S. missile defense was on rogue actors, especially North Korea and Iran, who were developing small numbers of medium- and long-range ballistic missiles that could threaten our allies in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of the United States. The 2018 National Defense Strategy put the focus squarely on great power competition with China and Russia, both of which have bigger and more complex arsenals of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long- range, high-speed cruise missiles. How has that changed MDA's work and sense of urgency? Hill: The previous administration drafted the 2018 National Defense Strategy. That strategy, which the current administration has continued, advanced the policy of relying on nuclear deterrence to protect against large and technically sophisticated Russian and Chinese intercontinental missile threats to the U.S. homeland. Defending against near-peer missile threats is cost-prohibitive and is not technically feasible. MDA is continuing its plan, in alignment with the current National Defense Strategy and missile defense policy, of developing and deploying homeland missile defense capabilities to address the limited but growing rogue-state offensive missile threats. At the same time, to address regional missile threats from any adversary, MDA is developing and deploying credible capabilities for regional defense. The sense of urgency to develop and deploy credible and effective missile defenses remains high, as it has over the past 10 to 15 years, because U.S. adversaries, including China and Russia, continue to invest in more capable ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles—systems with global reach, increased speed and maneuverability, greater accuracy, and improved countermeasures. Current missile defense policy recommends a comprehensive approach to prevent and defeat adversary attacks through a combination of: deterrence; if deterrence fails, attack operations to destroy offensive missiles prior to launch; and active and passive missile defenses. This comprehensive approach strengthens our ability to protect the U.S. homeland, U.S. forces abroad, allies, and partners; deters adversary threats and attacks; assures allies and partners; engages in diplomacy from a position of strength; hedges against future risk; and preserves our freedom of action to conduct regional military operations in defense of our interests. In sum, current U.S. Government policy identifies three principles governing U.S. missile defenses:

• U.S. homeland missile defense will stay ahead of rogue states’ missile threats • Missile defense will defend U.S. forces deployed abroad from the full spectrum of missile threats from any source and support the security of allies and partners • The United States will pursue new concepts and technologies to stay ahead of growing offensive threats posed by ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/april/target-rich-environment

Rescue vessels begin search for missing Indonesian submarine

By: Mike Yeo 10 hours ago

6 The Indonesian submarine KRI Nanggala, pictured in 2015, went missing near the resort Island of Bali on April 21, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alonzo M. Archer)

MELBOURNE, Australia – An Indonesian submarine with 53 personnel on board has gone missing in deep waters during a training exercise, with a submarine rescue vessel from Singapore already on its way to assist in the search.

The German-built Type 209 diesel-electric submarine KRI Nanggala was declared missing in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time in waters north of the Indonesian resort island of Bali after it failed to report the results of a torpedo drill it was undertaking at the time, according to an Indonesian navy spokesman quoted by Reuters.

Indonesia’s military chief, Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto, added that neighboring Singapore and Australia had been asked to provide assistance in locating the missing submarine, with ship tracking software showing the former’s submarine rescue vessel MV Swift Rescue already sailing southwards towards Bali as of Wednesday afternoon local time.

The southeast Asian island nation signed a submarine rescue agreement with Indonesia in 2012 and has similar agreements with several other navies, including the United States, to render submarine rescue assistance in the region should a need for such services arise.

The MV Swift Rescue, which is operated by the Singaporean navy but manned by civilian contractors, is equipped with a Deep Search and Rescue Six (DSAR 6) submersible, which is based on James Fisher Defence’s DSAR 500 Class submarine rescue vehicle.

The Swift Rescue will join other Indonesian navy ships already searching for the submarine, with ship tracking websites showing at least two Indonesian corvettes already at the vessel’s last known location, which is reportedly between 700 to 800 meters (2,300 to 2,625 feet) deep.

The KRI Nanggala was built in 1978 and is the Indonesian navy’s second-oldest submarine in its fleet of five boats, having been delivered in the early 1980s and given a comprehensive refit in South Korea in 2012.

Australia has not announced if its own submarine rescue capabilities are being sent for the search. The Royal Australian Navy has a British-designed LR5 which is also managed by James Fisher Defence as its contracted Submarine Escape and Rescue System.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2021/04/21/rescue-vessels-begin-search-for- missing-indonesian-submarine/

Missing Indonesia submarine: oil spill found near where vessel dived with 53 people on board

• The navy has sought help from Australia, Singapore and India, the country’s military chief said on Wednesday • The German-made submarine, KRI Nanggala-402, was conducting a torpedo drill in waters north of Bali

Reuters

A search for an Indonesian submarine that went missing with 53 people on board continued on Thursday after rescuers found an oil spill near where the vessel dived and as neighbouring countries pledged to help.

The 44-year-old submarine, KRI Nanggala-402, was conducting a torpedo drill in waters north of the island of Bali but failed to relay the results as expected, a navy spokesman said.

An aerial search found an oil spill near the submarine’s dive location and two navy vessels with sonar capability have been deployed to assist in the search, the defence ministry said.

A ministry statement said requests for help had been sent and Australia, Singapore and India had responded. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3130490/indonesia-searching-53-people- aboard-missing-submarine

Search for missing Indonesian submarine finds oil spill

An aerial search found an oil spill near the submarine's dive location and two navy vessels with sonar capability have been deployed to assist the hunt, Indonesia's Defense Ministry said.

Reuters | | Posted by Srivatsan K C, Jakarta

PUBLISHED ON APR 21, 2021 07:44 PM IST

Indonesian rescuers searching for a submarine that went missing with 53 people on board found an oil spill on Wednesday near its dive location, authorities said.

The 44-year-old submarine, KRI Nanggala-402, was conducting a torpedo drill in waters north of the island of Bali but failed to relay the results as expected, a navy spokesman said.

An aerial search found an oil spill near the submarine's dive location and two navy vessels with sonar capability have been deployed to assist the hunt, Indonesia's Defense Ministry said.

A ministry statement said requests for assistance had been sent and Australia, Singapore and India had responded.

CNN Indonesia reported that Indonesian navy official Julius Widjojono said he suspected the submarine had descended to a depth of 600-700 metres.

"We are still searching in the waters of Bali, 60 miles (96 km) from Bali, (for) 53 people," military chief Hadi Tjahjanto told Reuters in a text message. He said contact with the vessel was lost at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/search-for-missing-indonesian-submarine-finds- oil-spill-101619014043788.html

Indonesia must address gender perspectives in counterterrorism, experts suggest

Tri Indah Oktavianti The Jakarta Post PREMIUM Jakarta / Wed, April 21, 2021 / 04:37 pm

Police tape seals off the family home of the armed woman who was shot dead by authorities while attacking Indonesia's National Police headquarters, in Jakarta on March 31, 2021.(AFP/Dasril Roszandi ) 0 SHARES The involvement of women in two recent terrorism-linked attacks has sparked fresh debate on the role of gender in Indonesia's counterradicalism policies, as experts pointed out the lack of women’s perspectives and experiences in these measures. A woman, identified only as LSF, was one half of a couple who carried out a suicide bombing of a Catholic church in Makassar, South on Palm Sunday on March 28. Among those arrested by the police in Makassar with a possible link to the bombing, three were women affiliated with the Islamic State-linked Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) terrorism network. Three days after the Makassar bombing, a 25-year-old woman named Zakiah Aini entered the National Police headquarters in Jakarta and began opening fire with an airsoft gun. She was eventually shot dead by the police. Read also: Newlywed suicide bombers identified in Makassa...

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/04/21/indonesia-must-address-gender-perspectives-in- counterterrorism-experts-suggest.html.

Japan troops won’t get involved if China invades Taiwan, PM Yoshihide Suga says

• A recent statement by Suga and Biden calling for ‘peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait’ raised questions about possible Japanese military involvement • Analysts say Suga’s latest comments were Tokyo’s way of drawing a line under suggestions the government could use a different interpretation of the constitution to give it freer reign to dispatch the military

Julian Ryall in Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has emphasised that, despite a reference to Taiwan in a joint statement after his recent meeting with US President Joe Biden there is no possibility of Japanese forces being committed to any military contingency surrounding Taiwan.

In response to a question from an opposition politician in the Diet on Tuesday about the details of Japan’s commitment to Taiwan, Suga replied that the statement “does not presuppose military involvement at all”.

Analysts say Japan’s constitution would block the military from taking part in combat in the event China attempted to take Taiwan by force, although Japan could provide a range of logistical and rear-echelon support to the United States.

The wording of the statement – the first document signed by the Japanese and US leaders to refer to Taiwan since diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Beijing were normalised in 1972 – had been closely scrutinised.

Biden and Suga called for “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”, the first reference to Taiwan – which Beijing claims as its territory – in a joint statement in more than 50 years. They also said they would counter China’s “intimidation” in the Asia-Pacific region.

China accused Japan and the US of sowing division, and said the two countries were inciting “group confrontation”. On the weekend, the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command, which oversees the Taiwan Strait, deployed dozens of H-6K strategic bombers in a nine-hour live-fire drill, according to state television.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3130423/japan-troops-wont-get-involved-if-china- invades-taiwan-pm

Japan prepares to join UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network

Its deep understanding of China would make it a valuable addition to the Anglophone alliance

Bernard Lagan, Sydney, and Gavin Blair, Tokyo

Wednesday April 21 2021, 12.00pm BST, The Times Japan is preparing to join the Anglophone world’s Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, its ambassador to Australia has revealed.

Shingo Yamagami, formerly the head of the intelligence branch of Japan’s foreign ministry, said: “We would like to see this idea become reality in the near future.” He told The Sydney Morning Herald that he was “very much optimistic” about it coming to fruition. Australia and New Zealand joined the US, Britain and Canada to complete the Five Eyes alliance 65 years ago. The countries share intelligence in a continuous top-secret exchange.

Japan is believed to have substantial intelligence-gathering capabilities and, according to academics, would be a useful addition to the Five Eyes network, particularly because of its proximity to China. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/japan-prepares-to-join-anglophone-intelligence-sharing-network- 8dsmsz5wm

Japan accuses Chinese military hacker over cyberattacks

Gavin Blair, Tokyo

Tuesday April 20 2021, 12.00pm BST, The Times A Chinese computer systems engineer who was working for the People’s Liberation Army hacked into as many as 200 Japanese companies and organisations, including the country’s space agency, prosecutors in Tokyo have said.

The man, in his thirties, has not been named but has been identified as a member of the Chinese Communist Party and charged with espionage. While working for a Chinese state-owned telecoms company in Japan he is alleged to have rented a computer server using a false identity. The hacker was working for a cyberespionage group known as “Tick”, which is under the control of the Chinese army, according to the Kyodo News agency.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/japan-accuses-chinese-military-hacker-over-cyberattacks- mj78m2lnd

9 Chinese military planes intrude into Taiwan’s ADIZ Taiwan sent planes, issued radio warnings, deployed air defense missile systems to track the PLAAF planes

2363

By Eric Chang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

2021/04/21 09:22

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Nine Chinese military planes entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday (April 20), marking the 17th intrusion this month.

Five People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, two Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare planes, one Shaanxi Y-8 electronic warfare plane, and one Shaanxi Y-8 reconnaissance plane flew into the southwest corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ. In response, Taiwan sent aircraft, broadcast radio warnings, and deployed air defense missile systems to track the PLAAF planes.

Since September of last year, Beijing has stepped up its gray zone tactics by regularly sending planes into Taiwan’s ADIZ, with most instances taking place in the southwest corner of the zone.

Initially, these intrusions were usually carried out by one to three slow-flying turboprops. However, over the last month, China has begun sending larger incursions including fighter jets (J-10s and J-16s) into the identification zone.

An ADIZ is an area that extends beyond a country’s air space where air traffic controllers ask incoming aircraft to identify themselves. Gray zone tactics are defined as “as an effort or series of efforts beyond steady-state deterrence and assurance that attempts to achieve one’s security objectives without resort to direct and sizable use of force.”

According to MND data, Chinese planes were tracked in Taiwan’s identification zone 18 times in March, 17 times in February, and 27 times in January, while last year they were observed 19 times in December, 22 times in November, and 22 times in October, including a drone on Oct. 22.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4182612

Community of employers formed to strengthen initiatives for national servicemen Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How launched the Community of Practice of National Service Advocates.ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO

Lim Min Zhang

SINGAPORE - A mentorship programme, a fitness app, and courses in career education and human resources were among initiatives mooted for operationally-ready national servicemen (NSmen) by a group of employers on Wednesday (April 21). Called the Community of Practice of National Service Advocates, the group was launched by Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How at The Chevrons in Jurong to support NSmen through ground-up initiatives.

The group of 33 employers includes members of the Ministry of Defence's (Mindef's) Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (Accord), trade associations and business owners.

Among them is group chairman of cloud computing firm InfoFabrica Holdings Abu Bakar Mohd Nor; CTES Consulting managing director Christina Tin; and director for corporate relations and communication at Qoo10 Sam Too.

The idea for such a community was meant to sustain national service advocacy efforts in the employer and business community, strengthen support for national service, and proliferate support for national service as a national culture, said Mindef.

At Wednesday's event, the group discussed ideas that can eventually be scaled up to benefit more NSmen.

Five ideas in the pipeline are a career education programme, a fitness app to encourage NSmen employees to keep fit, a mentorship programme for younger NSmen taking on leadership roles during their reservist training, and courses in human resources and logistics and supply chain management.

To encourage skills upgrading in logistics and supply chain management, Accord worked with the Singapore Logistics Association to award a Specialist Certificate in Logistics Management, which will be launched by the end of the year.

The Singapore Human Resources Institute signed a pledge for a three-year HR Development Support for NSmen earlier this month for NSmen to enjoy a one-year complimentary membership with the institute to widen their network to the HR community in Singapore. NSmen can also access monthly webinars and attend job preparation sessions. A fitness app by Elxr allows NSmen to participate in various fitness programmes through a collaboration with the Singapore Sports Hub.

Mr Abu Bakar, who is a member of Accord, said the five initiatives that have been identified would need to be fine-tuned.

"We believe that these are five main things that resonate with both NSmen and businesses. But as the community progresses, we hope that more members can look at these ideas and ask how they want to chip in and expand them," he said.

Mr Heng, who participated in the discussion, said: "The quality of ideas and the robust conversations we had today are the strongest signs of the high level of commitment and support that our employers and businesses give to NS and NSmen."

He added that he hopes the community of practice can facilitate and amplify these efforts, so that NSmen's contributions are better recognised and acknowledged by employers and businesses. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/community-of-employers-formed-to-strengthen-initiatives-for- national-servicemen

Sri Lanka asks Chinese ship to leave Hambantota port; radioactive material found

Anil Ranjith, the top official of the Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Authority (SLAEA), said that the ship was on its way to China from the port of Rotterdam when it developed technical difficulties and entered the Hambantota Port.

PTI |

PUBLISHED ON APR 21, 2021 08:16 PM IST

Sri Lanka has asked a Chinese ship to leave the southern port of Hambantota after it was found to be carrying radioactive material, officials said on Wednesday.

Anil Ranjith, the top official of the Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Authority (SLAEA), said that the ship was on its way to China from the port of Rotterdam when it developed technical difficulties and entered the Hambantota Port.

The SLAEA said the vessel had failed to disclose its radioactive cargo when it docked in at the port.

The ship was managed by the China Merchants Port Holding Company.

The main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa said in parliament that the Sri Lanka Navy, who is in charge of the Hambantota port security, had not been allowed to carry out inspections on the vessel.

“The local agent of the vessel had not informed the presence of dangerous cargo on board cargo when they sought permission from the Harbour Master to enter the port.”

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/sri-lanka-asks-chinese-ship-to-leave-hambantota-port- radioactive-material-found-101619013465326.html

Car bomb kills four at Pakistan hotel hosting China’s ambassador

• Chinese diplomat Nong Rong was at a function during the attack, which has been claimed by the Pakistani Taliban • 11 others were wounded during the blast at the luxury Serena Hotel, with some of them in critical condition

Reuters

A car bomb blast ripped through a luxury hotel’s parking area in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 11, officials said.

China’s ambassador to Pakistan was staying at the hotel, but was not there when the bomb exploded, said Pakistan’s interior Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad.

“An explosion has rocked the parking area of Serena Hotel,” said police official Nasir Malik, adding that 11 people had been wounded.

An official at a local civil hospital, Waseem Baig, said four people had died, and “several others are in critical condition”. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3130525/car-bomb-kills-4-pakistan-hotel-where- chinas-ambassador-was

Russia plans to launch own space station after quitting ISS

Reuters

The International Space Station (ISS) photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking, October 4, 2018.NASA/Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS

Russia is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030 if President Vladimir Putin gives the go-ahead, the head of its Roscosmos space agency said on Wednesday.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/russia-plans-launch-own-space-station-after-quitting-iss- 2021-04-21/

The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Harrowing Take on Our Possible Futures Stewart M. Patrick Monday, April 19, 2021

Every few years, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, or NIC, gazes into its crystal ball and imagines the world 20 years hence. The latest installment, released on April 8, is a harrowing read. “Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World” anticipates an era even more chaotic and divided than our own, in which institutions at all levels struggle to adapt to abrupt demographic shifts, economic turbulence, runaway climate change and technological innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has left governments thrashing and multilateral institutions flailing, is the shape of things to come.

“Global Trends 2040” is the fourth in a series of reports dating back to 1997 and the most explicit in conceding the arrival of a post-American world. Going forward, it states, no single nation will be able to dominate “across all regions or domains.” Rather, “rival powers will jockey to shape global norms, rules, and institutions.” Geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China will set the parameters of international cooperation. ...

https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29583/for-u-s-intelligence-threats-cloud-the-horizon-in- global-trends-2040

NOT JUST FOR SOF ANYMORE: ENVISIONING IRREGULAR WARFARE AS A JOINT FORCE PRIORITY Michael P. Noonan | 04.21.21

The recent buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine and Chinese naval exercises to the east and west of Taiwan may be seen as evidence that great power competition will require a return to focusing on the threats posed by the maneuver brigades, air wings, and naval fleets of competitors. For the Biden administration, which entered office stating that

“diplomacy,clear temptation development, to reduce and US commitmentseconomic statecraft to messy should political-mil be the leadingitary conflicts instruments on what of manyAmerican see asforeign the strategic policy,” peripheryand “the use (i.e., of Africa,military the force Middle should East, be and the Central last resort,” Asia). there is a k that the United States will remove all troops from Afghanistan by September 2021 is a prominent, but certainly not the only, indicator of Presidentthis trajectory. Biden’s For announcement some this means, last perhaps, wee that there should be a division of labor between conventional forces and special operations forces (SOF) that might assign these messy contingencies to the latter forces, but that would be a mistake.

As the Biden administration develops its national security strategy, it should not conflate great power competition with major theater war or conventional operations. The last twenty years of conflict have pushed both state and nonstate actors to challenge the United States in ways that it has historically been uncomfortable countering. This is particularly the case in the gray zone, where actors oftentimes blend and blur various tools of power in order to achieve objectives below the threshold of war. Responding to this international environment will mean that thinking of policy elements in discrete bins of force, diplomacy, and development will hamper US responses to threats and opportunities. The United States will need to merge all instruments of power, to include various components of its military power, to counter challenges from its rivals.

For the Department of Defense, this will mean that the military will be actively engaged overseas, oftentimes alongside partners and allies, in order to respond to or more preferably shape regional dynamics. Irregular warfare (IW) will play an important role in this national security environment. Though much public debate over the definition— and centrality of— IW has centered on authoritative documents such as the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) and its 2020 IW annex, more informal notes on military doctrine offer useful frames through which to understand IW, such as the cooperation, competition, and conflict continuum. When we understand the nature and scope of IW through both national security guidance and doctrine, it becomes clear that IW will be an important element across the joint force. Neglecting IW or making it the exclusive domain of Special Operations Command (SOCOM) will limit and suboptimize our responses to these types of competition and threats.

https://mwi.usma.edu/not-just-for-sof-anymore-envisioning-irregular-warfare-as-a-joint-force-priority/

WINNING THE AI-ENABLED WAR-AT-SEA

APRIL 19, 2021 GUEST AUTHOR LEAVE A COMMENT By Dr. Peter Layton

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is suddenly important to military forces. Not yet an arms race, today’s competition is more in terms of an experimentation race with many AI systems being tested and new research centers established. There may be a considerable first-mover advantage to the country that first understands AI adequately enough to change its existing human-centered force structures and embrace AI warfighting.

In a new Joint Studies Paper, I explore sea, land and air operational concepts appropriate to fighting near-to-medium term future AI-enabled wars. With much of the underlying narrow AI technology already developed in the commercial sector, this is less of a speculative exercise than might be assumed. Moreover, the contemporary AI’s general- purpose nature means its initial employment will be within existing operational level constructs, not wholly new ones.

Here, the focus is the sea domain. The operational concepts mooted are simply meant to stimulate thought about the future and how to prepare for it. In being so aimed, the concepts are deliberately constrained; crucially they are not joint or combined. In all this, it is important to remember that AI enlivens other technologies. AI is not a stand- alone actor, rather it works in the combination with numerous other digital technologies. It provides a form of cognition to these.

https://cimsec.org/winning-the-ai-enabled-war-at-sea/

13 million vaccine doses to arrive before midyear

Edu Punay (The Philippine Star ) - April 22, 2021 - 12:00am MANILA, Philippines — The pace of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the country will pick up in the next two months as about 12 to 13 million doses of vaccines would arrive before the middle of the year, vaccine czar and Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. told Congress yesterday.

His commitment before the joint hearing of the House committees on health and trade and industry is anchored on the scheduled arrival of big bulks of vaccines ordered both by the government and private sector.

The jabs scheduled to arrive are Sinovac, Gamaleya, AstraZeneca and Pfizer from the World Health Organization-led COVAX Facility as well as the country’s purchase of Sputnik V from Russia’s Gamaleya.

Galvez said the deliveries in the second quarter will ramp up inoculations to 120,000 doses per day in the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus bubble by June as long as there will be 3.3 million doses available each month.

He also revealed that the government may opt to buy the booster shots, which are expected to be available in the United States by fall, instead of the five million doses on top of the 20 million it already secured.

“We plan that instead of procuring the five million vaccine doses, we might buy the booster already,” he bared, explaining that Moderna’s booster can be used alongside any other coronavirus vaccine.

While Galvez admitted that vaccine rollout was off to a slow start, the Philippines is not exactly lagging behind its neighbors in Southeast Asia.

Based on the data he presented during the hearing, the country is fourth among the fastest in terms of vaccination speed among the 10 member- countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

To date, the Philippines has administered 1,562,563 doses to 1,353,107 individuals since the rollout started last March 1.

Leading in inoculations are Indonesia, Singapore and Myanmar. Later yesterday, the Department of Health (DOH) released its Vaccination Statistics report, confirming Galvez’s figure and showing a total of 209,456 individuals in the country now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

They are the ones who have received two doses of the vaccines.

With the country having received a total of 3,025,600 vaccines from Sinovac and AstraZeneca, the DOH said “current deployment is for Priority Groups A1, A2 and A3.”

A1 pertains to health care workers, A2 refers to senior citizens and A.3 are the people with comorbidities, all of whom are now being given CoronaVac or AstraZenecca vaccines.

DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire urged local government units (LGUs) to tap non-medical people to help step up inoculations by performing other necessary tasks.

“Let us utilize the non-health care workers more by designating them in the screening and counseling areas. This will leave the nurses, doctors, pharmacists, midwives to the actual immunization,” Vergeire said.

At present, there are 3,263 vaccination sites nationwide.

Galvez told lawmakers the government is partnering with Ayala, SM, Megaworld and Robinsons to set up mega vaccination sites in their malls.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/04/22/2092876/13-million-vaccine-doses-arrive-midyear

ICUs At ‘High, Critical Risk’ Utilization Rate In Five Luzon Regions; 9,277 New Covid-19 Cases Logged BYBUSINESSMIRROR APRIL 22, 2021

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire

The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday reported that the country’s health-care utilization rate (HCUR) of priority regions are at moderate to high risk levels, while intensive care unit (ICU) utilization of each region has remained high to critical risk.

As of April 18, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the latest Health Facility Capacity Report showed that the HCUR in the National Capital Region (NCR) is at a moderate risk of 67 percent, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR): 76 percent (high risk), Region 2 at 80 percent (high risk), Region 3 at 61 percent (moderate risk), and Region 4-A at 70 percent (high risk).

For the ICU utilization rate, NCR is high risk at 84 percent, CAR: 73 percent (high risk), Region 2: 88 percent (critical risk), Region 3:87 percent (critical risk), and Region IV-A: 83 percent (high risk).

“We need to be very cautious in interpreting this health care utilization rate. As what we’ve said, this [figure] is diluting because all the levels of hospitals are included here,” Vergeire said in an online media forum.

Vergeire said that the number of mild and asymptomatic Covid patients in NCR is at 41 percent.

“We have 1,062 asymptomatic and 1,792 mild suspects, probable, and confirmed cases,” she added.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/04/22/icus-at-high-critical-risk-utilization-rate-in-five-luzon- regions-9277-new-covid-19-cases-logged/

Palace exec warns public

ByTake Azer Parrocha Ivermectin April 21, 2021, 5:27 pm ‘at your own risk’:

MANILA – While clinical trials are set to be conducted for the use of Ivermectin on Covid-19 patients in the country, a Palace official on Wednesday said anyone can take the controversial drug at one’s own risk.

In his online commentary show “Counterpoint”, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said it is best to wait for the results of the clinical trials to be conducted by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Department of Health (DOH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before taking the anti-parasitic drug.

“Kung ano na lang ang sabihin ng FDA, pakinggan na muna natin. Sila naman ang mga nakakaalam. Sila yung may mga karanasan, may expertise na tinatawag (Let’s wait for what the FDA has to say. They have the knowledge. They have the experience and expertise). They’re the ones studying so let them be,” he said.

Citing FDA Director General Eric Domingo, Panelo said high doses of Ivermectin could cause brain damage or even death.

He acknowledged that the medical community is divided as to whether Ivermectin should be given to Covid-19 patients or not, but reminded the public that there is a lack of data and evidence on its efficacy against Covid-19.

“You take Ivermectin at your own risk. Sabi ko sa inyo, kung sa tingin niyo yan ang makakaligtas ng buhay niyo, aba ay di inumin niyo. After all, katawan niyo ‘yan (Like I said, if you think it’s going to save your life, take it. After all, it’s your body),” he said.

Panelo said taking Ivermectin is not considered a crime and will not lead to imprisonment.

“Wala namang krimen na nagsasabi na pag uminom kayo ng gusto niyo sa tingin niyo ikabubuhay niyo, di kayo makukulong (There’s no crime saying you go to jail if you drink something you feel will save your life),” he said.

He noted that there are several drugs, such as Remdisivir, which have received approval from the FDA to treat Covid-19.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered the DOST, DOH, and FDA to hold local clinical trials for the use of Ivermectin.

Dr. Aileen Wang of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) was tasked to spearhead the trials. Duterte also continues to monitor developments concerning Ivermectin, even directing the Presidential Management Staff to give him weekly updates on Ivermectin studies and FDA-related clearance.

The FDA recently granted a compassionate special permit (CSP) for Ivermectin use on Covid-19 patients to two hospitals amid pressure from some doctors and private groups advocating its use.

Prior to the grant of the CSP to two hospitals, Ivermectin products were used for certain animal species to treat internal and external parasites as well as prevention of heartworm disease. (PNA)

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137540

Why limiting AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines over blood clot fears could do more harm than good

• Countries across Europe and the Asia-Pacific have restricted use of both the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson jabs after reports of rare blood clots, despite the risks being minuscule • Experts warn this may be an overreaction that could prolong the pandemic by slowing down the roll-out of vaccines and fuelling public hesitancy

John Power

When Philippine vaccine tsar Carlito Galvez Jnr announced on Monday that the country’s Food and Drug Administration had authorised emergency use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and was aiming to procure up to 10 million doses, he was ahead of the United States and European authorities in ruling on the safety of the shot.

Since last week, US authorities have suspended use of the single shot J&J vaccine – 4.5 million doses have been administered worldwide – after reports of extremely rare blood clots. The shot, which has yet to be widely distributed outside the US, also remains on hold in South Africa and several European countries although no causal link has been established between the vaccine and blood clots.

This followed similar reports of blood clots in a very small number of people who received the two-dose AstraZeneca vaccine.

Europe’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, on Tuesday said it had found a possible link between the J&J vaccine and rare blood clotting issues in adults who had received the jab in the US, Reuters reported. However, it also reiterated that the benefits of the J&J vaccine outweighed the risks.

US pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci said on Sunday he believed the US would resume use of the J&J jab, possibly with some restrictions or warnings.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3130347/why-limiting-astrazeneca- johnson-johnson-coronavirus

Chinese expert rails against WHO chief and Wuhan lab leak theory

• Unnamed scientist who investigated pandemic origins given state media platform to accuse ‘irresponsible’ WHO director general of pursuing controversial theory • Backlash has potential to cause a rift between China and WHO and harm future probes into pandemic origins, say experts

Zhuang Pinghui in Beijing Published: 6:18pm, 21 Apr, 2021

A Chinese scientist on the joint international team investigating the origins of Covid-19 accused WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of being “extremely irresponsible” for pursuing the “lab leak” theory. The rare public display of discontent – voiced by an anonymous expert and reported in local state media – showed how Beijing subtly protested against the World Health pursuit of a hypothesis that China preferred to abandon while leaving room not to bruise ties with the UN agency. Organization’s The issue might potentially sour the relationship between China and the world health body but would not fundamentally change it, an observer said.

China has been firmly pushing back against any suggestions that a leak from a high-level biosecurity lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan started the Covid-19 pandemic. It has also insisted China was very cooperative and transparent with the investigation.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3130470/coronavirus-chinese-expert-rails- against-tedros-and-wuhan-lab

Indian capital running out of medical oxygen as pandemic surges ReutersNeha AroraAnuron MitraAditi ShahRupam Jain

Authorities said hospitals in the Indian capital of Delhi would start running out of medical oxygen by Wednesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country faced a coronavirus "storm" overwhelming its health system.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-reports-daily-rise-covid-19- cases-259170-2021-04-20/

What you need to know about the coronavirus right now Reuters

Oxygen supplies run low in India

Indian authorities scrambled to shore up supplies of medical oxygen to hospitals in the capital, New Delhi, on Wednesday as a fast-spreading second wave of coronavirus cases stretched medical infrastructure to breaking point, officials and doctors said.

India, the world's second most populous country after China, is reporting the highest global number of new daily cases and is approaching a peak of about 297,000 cases in one day that the United States hit in January.

The latest date released by the health ministry showed there had been 295,041 new infections nationwide overnight and 2,023 deaths, India’s highest in the pandemic.

J&J to resume rollout of vaccine in Europe

Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday it would resume rolling out its COVID-19 vaccine in Europe after the region's medical regulator said the benefits of the shot outweigh the risk of very rare, potentially lethal blood clots.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/what- you-need-know-about-coronavirus-right-now-2021-03-02/

Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak Across the World Updated: April 22, 2021, 8:20 AM GMT+8

Tracking Covid-19 • Vaccine Tracker • Global Cases • U.S. Cases • U.S. Regions U.K. 1,950 67,409 2,083.9 2.5

Brazil 1,814 67,155 N/A N/A

U.S. 1,724 96,469 1,209.8 2.8

France 1,509 80,404 N/A 6.0

Germany 1,006 39,918 655.8 8.0

Russia 739 32,926 865.3 8.1

India 139 11,907 204.3 0.5

Japan 77 4,352 82.5 13.1

Mainland China 3 65 N/A 4.3

Testing data as of April 20, 2021, 9:17 PM GMT+8 Sources: OECD for number of hospital beds (2016 for the U.S., 2017 for other countries), government agencies and the COVID Tracking Project via Our World in Data for testing data (various recent dates) (reported in the past 45 days) and the U.S. Census Bureau for population figures (2019).

The world is bracing for a new wave of Covid-19 infections, as the coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 140 million people and killed more than 3.0 million globally since late January 2020. Efforts many countries took to stamp out the pneumonia-like illness led to entire nations enforcing lockdowns, widespread halts of international travel, mass layoffs and battered financial markets. Recent attempts to revive social life and financial activities have resulted in another surge in cases and hospitalizations, though new drugs and improved care may help more people who get seriously ill survive.

Getting to a Flatter Curve  The first 460 days with more than 100 confirmed cases

• Asia

• Other Show deaths 01002003004001 yrDays since 100 confirmed cases1001,00010,000100,0001,000,00010,000,00030,000,000CasesMainland ChinaSouth KoreaJapanFranceSingaporeSpainU.K.Hong KongU.S.AustraliaBrazilIndiaRussiaTaiwanNew Zealand Note: JHU CSSE reporting began on January 22, 2020, when mainland China had already surpassed 500 cases. Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering 143,482,537 Confirmed cases worldwide 3,055,018 Deaths worldwide Jurisdictions with cases confirmed as of April 22, 2021, 8:20 AM GMT+8 • 1–99

• 100–999

• 1,000–9,999

• 10,000–99,999

• 100,000–999,999

• 1,000,000–9,999,999

• 10 million or more Where deaths have occurred Deaths Cases

U.S. 569,383 31,860,862

Brazil 381,475 14,122,795

Mexico 213,048 2,311,172

India 182,553 15,616,130

U.K. 127,577 4,411,059

Italy 117,997 3,904,899

Russia 104,937 4,673,699

France 102,046 5,436,227

Germany 80,793 3,205,939

Spain 77,364 3,446,072

Colombia 69,596 2,701,313

Iran 67,913 2,311,813

Poland 63,473 2,718,493

Argentina 60,083 2,769,552

Peru 57,954 1,719,088

Show more Note: Totals for Denmark, France, the Netherlands, the U.K., and the U.S. include overseas territories and other dependencies. Cases and deaths for cruise ships have been separated in accordance with JHU CSSE data. More Coverage From Bloomberg • Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter • Stories about the coronavirus outbreak from Bloomberg News • Virus Update from Bloomberg News • The Future of Travel in the Covid Era • How Covid Is Shifting Human Behavior Around the World • The Covid Resilience Ranking The epicenter of the pandemic has continued to shift throughout the year, from China, then Europe, then the U.S., and now to developing countries like Brazil. Cases globally surpassed 10 million in late June, but ever since infections have been multiplying faster. The U.S. and India have the most infections, accounting for more than a third of all cases combined.

Global Cases Added Per Day New cases: 854,425 Jan 21, 2020 Apr 20, 2021 India

New cases: 295,158

Jan 21, 2020

Apr 20, 2021 Brazil

69,381 U.S.

61,273 France

44,076 Germany

31,397 Iran

25,492 Russia

8,044 U.K.

2,530 Mainland China

21 Note: On February 14, 2020, Hubei officials changed their diagnostic criteria, resulting in a spike in reported cases.

Countries took drastic measures to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 on their homefront— with varying degrees of success. More than 140 governments placed blanket bans on incoming travelers, closed schools and restricted gatherings and public events, according to data compiled by Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and Bloomberg reporting. As countries loosen lockdowns in an effort to reboot their economies, many have seen a resurgence of infections. The number of new daily cases in the U.S. rose to record highs after some states relaxed social distancing requirements. Even places that successfully contained infections earlier in the year, like China and South Korea, have seen cases bubble back up. Theories that warmer weather in the would bring relief appear to be unfounded.

How the Outbreak Spread Country by Country  Seven-day rolling average of new deaths and cases

• Asia

• Other Show cases Mar 2020Jan 2021Apr 2000.5K1.0K1.5K2.0K2.5K3.0K3.5KNew deaths by dayU.S.IndiaRussiaU.K. Note: Shown are the 15 places with the highest totals of confirmed cases, as of April 20. Negative values resulting from governments revising their totals have been excluded from rolling average calculations.

The “worst is yet to come” given a lack of global solidarity, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said at a briefing in Geneva on June 29.

In May, the WHO emphasized the need for a plan that includes testing for the virus and its antibodies, effective contact tracing and isolation, and community education. Antibody tests on the market that could potentially indicate a person’s immunity have been unreliable so far. Researchers and drugmakers are racing to develop treatments that could hold the key to recovery.

Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral remdesivir is one of the first widely used drugs for Covid- 19. It received an emergency use authorization from U.S. regulators in May, after a trial found it sped recovery by about four days in hospitalized patients. It was also part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s treatment after he tested positive for the coronavirus in early October, along with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s antibody cocktail and the generic drug dexamethasone.

Vaccines are also in development, though the study of one leading candidate from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc is on hold in the U.S. while regulators investigate a potential safety issue.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-coronavirus-cases-world- map/?srnd=coronavirus

Covid map: Coronavirus cases, deaths, vaccinations by country

By The Visual and Data Journalism Team BBC News

Published 2 days ago Share Related Topics

• Coronavirus pandemic

Covid-19 is continuing to spread around the world, with more than 140 million confirmed cases and 3 million deaths across nearly 200 countries.

The US, India and Brazil have seen the highest number of confirmed cases, followed by France, Russia and the UK. Very few places have been left untouched.

mappedShow

141,422,630cases3,020,112deaths 31,500,000 Circles show number of confirmed coronavirus cases per country.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, national public health agencies Figures last updated 19 April 2021, 09:20 BST

In the table below, countries can be reordered by deaths, death rate and total cases. In the coloured bars on the right-hand side, countries in which cases have risen to more than 10,000 per day are those with black bars on the relevant date The world New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** US 564,848 172.7 31,536,085 JAN 2020 APR 2021 Brazil 373,335 178.2 13,943,071 Mexico 212,339 168.3 2,305,602 India 178,769 13.2 15,061,805 UK 127,270 189.6 4,387,820 Italy 116,927 192.9 3,870,131 Russia 103,834 71.2 4,649,044 France 100,733 155.0 5,289,526 Germany 80,052 96.3 3,155,522 Spain 76,981 164.9 3,407,283 Colombia 68,328 137.6 2,652,947 Iran 66,732 81.6 2,237,089 Poland 62,032 163.6 2,688,025 Argentina 59,228 133.5 2,694,014 Peru 57,230 178.9 1,704,757 South Africa 53,736 93.0 1,566,769 Indonesia 43,424 16.2 1,604,348 Ukraine 41,748 94.4 2,006,073 Turkey 35,926 43.6 4,268,447 Czech Republic 28,532 267.5 1,602,711 Romania 26,232 134.5 1,029,304 Hungary 25,184 259.4 750,508 Chile 25,177 134.4 1,124,718 Belgium 23,747 206.8 949,996 Canada 23,611 63.7 1,129,371 Ecuador 17,703 103.6 360,546 Portugal 16,945 165.2 831,001 Netherlands 16,919 99.2 1,404,029 Pakistan 16,316 7.7 761,437 New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Philippines 15,960 15.0 936,133 Bulgaria 15,195 215.5 386,381 Iraq 14,981 39.0 977,175 Sweden 13,788 138.3 900,138 Egypt 12,738 12.9 216,334 Bolivia 12,648 111.4 289,066 Slovakia 11,106 203.7 375,974 Switzerland 10,510 123.3 632,399 Bangladesh 10,385 6.4 718,950 Austria 9,898 111.3 593,423 Tunisia 9,783 84.6 285,490 Japan 9,612 7.6 535,747 Greece 9,462 89.9 315,273 Morocco 8,945 24.8 505,811 Jordan 8,246 82.7 685,973 Bosnia and 7,788 234.3 188,994 Herzegovina Guatemala 7,221 41.9 212,734 Lebanon 6,925 101.0 510,403 Saudi Arabia 6,823 20.2 404,970 Croatia 6,562 157.9 307,790 Israel 6,338 75.6 837,160 Panama 6,188 148.1 360,841 Serbia 5,991 85.8 662,368 Moldova 5,571 137.5 245,897 Paraguay 5,313 76.4 250,165 Honduras 4,957 51.7 200,935 China 4,845 0.3 102,242 Ireland 4,836 100.4 243,508 North Macedonia 4,443 213.3 147,094 New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Slovenia 4,159 200.2 232,071 Azerbaijan 4,140 41.6 300,666 Georgia 3,939 98.4 295,358 Armenia 3,878 131.4 208,520 Lithuania 3,770 134.6 234,232 Dominican 3,418 32.2 261,129 Republic Ethiopia 3,370 3.1 242,028 Kazakhstan 3,291 18.0 341,599 Myanmar 3,206 6.0 142,628 Algeria 3,155 7.5 119,642 Nepal 3,083 11.0 284,673 Costa Rica 3,071 61.4 228,577 Palestinian 3,017 62.0 280,741 Territories Libya 2,896 43.4 171,880 Afghanistan 2,539 6.8 57,793 Kenya 2,481 4.8 151,653 Denmark 2,455 42.7 242,633 Belarus 2,423 25.6 344,223 Albania 2,342 81.2 129,594 Sudan 2,208 5.3 33,022 Kosovo 2,080 112.7 101,191 El Salvador 2,078 32.4 67,557 Nigeria 2,061 1.1 164,233 Latvia 2,053 106.5 111,334 Uruguay 1,908 55.3 164,744 Venezuela 1,905 6.6 183,190 Oman 1,878 38.9 180,031 South Korea 1,801 3.5 114,646 New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Kyrgyzstan 1,555 24.7 92,095 United Arab 1,554 16.1 497,154 Emirates Zimbabwe 1,553 10.8 37,751 Kuwait 1,448 35.0 256,987 Syria 1,446 8.5 21,142 Montenegro 1,429 227.6 95,551 Malaysia 1,378 4.4 375,054 Zambia 1,235 7.1 90,918 Malawi 1,138 6.3 33,941 Yemen 1,126 4.0 5,812 Estonia 1,092 82.5 117,554 Senegal 1,091 6.9 39,782 Cameroon 939 3.7 64,809 Australia 910 3.7 29,543 Finland 887 16.1 84,131 Mozambique 798 2.7 69,203 Luxembourg 785 129.9 64,746 Ghana 771 2.6 91,709 DR Congo 745 0.9 28,956 Jamaica 723 24.6 43,890 Norway 708 13.3 107,510 Botswana 671 29.8 44,075 Eswatini 671 59.1 18,417 Somalia 670 4.5 13,079 Uzbekistan 638 2.0 86,982 Sri Lanka 618 2.9 96,796 Namibia 604 24.7 46,655 Bahrain 594 37.8 164,110 Angola 561 1.8 24,389 New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Madagascar 542 2.1 32,205 Cuba 525 4.6 93,511 Mauritania 453 10.3 18,129 Mali 433 2.3 13,070 Malta 409 93.1 29,966 Qatar 382 13.7 196,580 Uganda 338 0.8 41,378 Rwanda 325 2.6 23,888 Belize 318 83.0 12,538 Lesotho 315 14.9 10,709 Cyprus 291 24.5 56,259 Ivory Coast 274 1.1 45,560 Guyana 271 34.8 11,863 Haiti 251 2.3 12,918 Guadeloupe 194 48.5 12,927 Bahamas 194 50.3 9,634 Cape Verde 192 35.3 20,466 Niger 190 0.8 5,131 Suriname 187 32.5 9,581 Nicaragua 180 2.8 6,778 Gambia 170 7.5 5,720 Chad 169 1.1 4,706 Mayotte 168 64.7 19,789 Burkina Faso 154 0.8 13,129 Trinidad and 153 11.0 8,940 Tobago Comoros 146 17.5 3,819 French Polynesia 141 50.8 18,696 Congo 139 2.7 10,084 Guinea 138 1.1 21,460 New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Réunion 135 15.3 18,425 Gabon 133 6.3 21,858 Andorra 123 159.7 12,805 Togo 119 1.5 12,533 Djibouti 116 12.1 10,460 South Sudan 114 1.0 10,473 Equatorial Guinea 106 8.1 7,259 Thailand 104 0.1 43,742 French Guiana 95 33.6 18,081 Benin 95 0.8 7,611 Gibraltar 94 278.8 4,291 Aruba 92 86.9 10,324 Tajikistan 90 1.0 13,308 Curaçao 89 54.7 11,882 Papua New 89 1.0 9,738 Guinea San Marino 87 257.5 5,026 Channel Islands 86 50.4 4,053 Liberia 85 1.8 2,042 Sierra Leone 79 1.0 4,028 Central African 75 1.6 5,787 Republic Maldives 70 13.6 26,348 Saint Lucia 67 36.8 4,401 Martinique 66 17.6 9,758 Guinea-Bissau 66 3.5 3,712 Liechtenstein 56 147.7 2,813 Mongolia 49 1.5 22,884 Barbados 44 15.4 3,781 Cambodia 43 0.3 6,389 New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Vietnam 35 0.0 2,785 Sao Tome and 35 16.6 2,275 Principe Monaco 31 80.1 2,399 Antigua and 31 32.2 1,216 Barbuda Singapore 30 0.5 60,831 Iceland 29 8.6 6,286 Isle of Man 29 34.5 1,577 Saint Martin 27 72.5 2,205 New Zealand 26 0.5 2,596 Seychelles 25 25.7 4,922 Tanzania 21 0.0 509 Bermuda 18 28.7 2,123 Turks and Caicos 17 45.1 2,369 Islands Mauritius 15 1.2 1,203 Diamond Princess 13 712 cruise ship Taiwan 11 0.0 1,073 Eritrea 10 0.3 3,491 St Vincent and the 10 9.1 1,819 Grenadines Burundi 6 0.1 3,477 Brunei 3 0.7 221 Timor-Leste 2 0.2 1,306 Cayman Islands 2 3.1 525 Fiji 2 0.2 72 MS Zaandam 2 9 cruise ship New Cases 0 10 100 1k 10k Country Deaths Death rate*Total Cases ** Bhutan 1 0.1 957 Saint Barthelemy 1 10.2 934 Faroe Islands 1 2.1 662 British Virgin 1 3.4 187 Islands Grenada 1 0.9 155 Montserrat 1 20.0 20 Dominica 0 0.0 165 New Caledonia 0 0.0 124 Falkland Islands 0 0.0 62 Laos 0 0.0 58 Saint Kitts and 0 0.0 44 Nevis Greenland 0 0.0 31 Anguilla 0 0.0 29 Vatican 0 0.0 27 Saint Pierre and 0 0.0 25 Miquelon Solomon Islands 0 0.0 20 Marshall Islands 0 0.0 4 Samoa 0 0.0 3 Vanuatu 0 0.0 3 0 0.0 1 Show more

This information is regularly updated but may not reflect the latest totals for each country.

** The past data for new cases is a three day rolling average. Due to revisions in the number of cases, an average cannot be calculated for this date. Source: Johns Hopkins University, national public health agencies and UN population data Figures last updated: 19 April 2021, 09:20 BST Note: The map, table and animated bar chart in this page use a different source for figures for France and the UK from that used by Johns Hopkins University, which results in a slightly lower overall total. US figures do not include Puerto Rico, Guam or the US Virgin Islands.

Confirmed cases have been rising steeply since the middle of last year, but the true extent of the first outbreaks in 2020 is unclear because testing was not then widely available. The 100 millionth coronavirus case was recorded at the end of January - about a year after the first officially diagnosed case of the virus.

Deaths have also been rising, however official figures may not fully reflect the true number in many countries. Data on excess deaths, a measure of how many more people are dying than would be expected based on the previous few years.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105

Virtual surrender of WPS to China? POSTSCRIPT - Federico D. Pascual Jr. (The Philippine Star ) - April 22, 2021 - 12:00am Watching President Duterte’s “Talk to the People” show Monday night, we were jolted toward the end of his report when he virtually surrendered to China the West Philippine Sea, or parts of it, without the aggressive neighbor even asking for it!

Duterte said that since China is in “constructive possession” of the disputed area, it completely controls the place, and the Philippines or any force on earth cannot do anything about it short of waging war.

He said: “The issue of the West Philippine Sea remains to be a question forever – until such time that we can take it back. For me, there’s no other way but war.

“If we promote a war against China, and (involve) America, maybe it would be quick. But at what cost to us? That’s the problem. We can retake (the WPS) only by force… There’s no way we can get back what is called the Philippine Sea without bloodshed.”

Duterte continued that since the Philippines cannot win a war against China, there is nothing he can or will do to take back the WPS. To us, that looks like virtual surrender even before the first shot is fired.

As the President is the Philippines’ sole spokesman in foreign relations, it appears that his declaration has put closure, at this point at least, to the dispute over maritime areas claimed by both countries.

Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr. can keep sending diplomatic protests to the Chinese embassy, adding to the pile of documents. The dispute can also be referred to the United Nations, but Duterte said not even the UN can force China to leave.

Duterte ridiculed former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who was with the Manila team that filed the case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, for his “paper” arguments against China’s claims.

Anyone who disagrees with the President’s virtual surrender of strategic sections of the WPS can try overturning his decision after his term ends in June 2022, or after his removal or replacement by whatever means before or after that date.

But while Duterte is the President, his virtual surrender appears to be the logical closure to the dispute. With China in constructive occupation of the disputed area, he said, no award, ruling or order, even from a United Nations agency, can dislodge the mighty occupant.

He said that war is the only way to take back the area lost. In the often tumultuous world of the 76-year-old Duterte, might is right. The President’s announcement, although rambling and marked by memory lapses, has greatly weakened the Philippine position in future negotiations.

Duterte spent 15 minutes discussing back and forth the maritime dispute with China, but failed to clarify some key points.

He did not specify the area or areas he described as constructively occupied by China. Many times, he referred broadly to the West Philippine Sea.

One time, he talked of the Philippines having “retreated” from the disputed area, apparently referring to Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal. He also cited the trouble-free replenishing of supplies for Kalayaan in the Spratly group.

So was he referring to scattered sections in the West Philippine Sea or all of it? Or was he referring only to parts of the country’s EEZ where incursions, swarming and the unwarranted presence of Chinese vessels have been documented?

Instead of ranting against critics of his pro-China foreign policy, Duterte may want to issue a well-studied and carefully worded statement. That is, if he is ready to have himself and the country pinned down to such a document.

If he is not ready to put it down on paper, what is the point of perorating on the same subject on TV? Nobody told him that the neighborhood bully was listening and probably enjoying it?

Duterte also said that if China entered the country’s EEZ and drilled for gas/oil, he would ask if that was part of his agreement with China President Xi Jinping. If extracting mineral deposits was not in the contract, he said, he would also go into his own drilling. Nobody in the room dared to ask what agreement he was talking about. There have been reports of alleged secret deals with Xi in exchange for loans, aid and whatever else, but no one has succeeded in accessing the details.

The people are entitled to know what patrimonial assets have been hocked to an oriental Shylock. What are the terms that will weigh heavily on future generations who know nothing about the debt burden being passed on to them and the debt trap that lies ahead?

Duterte need not ask Xi if mining operations are part of their agreement, because he should know. But judging from his spotty reporting Monday on TV he seemed to have forgotten much of those deals.

At Panatag, China’s coast guard continues to harass Filipinos casting nets in what is supposed to be their traditional fishing grounds since the time of their forefathers.

Duterte said the Philippines lost Panatag when the previous administration agreed in 2012 to a formula brokered by the United States for a simultaneous withdrawal (he called it a “retreat”) as a prelude to a return to the status ante a standoff.

But while the Philippines withdrew, China stayed and beefed up its presence in the shoal area amid reports of its intending to develop it as the western point in a triangular control zone in that part of the South China Sea.

Located 220 kilometers off Zambales (versus 980 km from the nearest land mass in Hainan, China), Panatag is within the EEZ extending 370-km from the west coast of Luzon and therefore open to mineral exploration and exploitation by Filipinos. The Philippines, however, does not have sovereignty, only sovereign rights, in its EEZ.

https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2021/04/22/2092938/virtual- surrender-wps-china

Words matter posted April 22, 2021 at 12:20 am

“When the President does not disown the statements of his alter egos, it’s as if he were the one speaking. He no longer needs to speak on the matter.”

This was the gist of what the Palace spokesman said when asked why President Duterte remained silent about the swarming of Chinese vessels in Philippine waters, even as his secretaries of Defense and Foreign Affairs were raising a howl over the illegal incursions.

The statement seems strange, coming from a person whose livelihood depends on words, but we have grown accustomed to the dissembling that goes on in that office.

For the record, words do matter—and words coming from the leader of a nation should matter most.

For months when the COVID-19 pandemic was just starting out in early 2020, then US President Donald Trump dismissed the threat posed by the new coronavirus.

“It’s one person coming in from China and we have it under control. It’s going to be fine,” Trump said in January.

A month later, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

Mr. Trump also consistently mocked the use of face masks and refused for the longest time to be seen wearing one in public.

All this was to have a disastrous effect on how Americans responded to the pandemic, and directly contributed to the staggering death toll of more than half a million people in the United States.

Words matter.

When the President’s spokesman spews motherhood statements about how our friendship with China will smooth out our territorial disputes with Beijing, these words can signal a refusal or failure to appreciate the reality of the situation, a shameful toadying to China’s communist leaders, or both.

Indeed, the President’s failure to make a full-throated defense of Philippine sovereignty and to warn his Chinese “friends” to stay out of our waters speaks louder than words. But then, the President seems to have no problems with international communists, just the domestic ones.

So when the President tells leftist groups that he is not red tagging them but identifying them as communists, this encourages the fascist tendencies of some law enforcement officials exemplified by the leaders of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC), who see communists hiding under every rock, including community pantries that seek to provide help to those in need in these pandemic times.

And when the President tells the military and the police that if they are in an armed encounter with communist rebels, to “make sure you really kill them and finish them off if they are alive,” this can have life-and-death consequences for the targets of the military’s irresponsible red-tagging.

https://manilastandard.net/opinion/editorial/352484/words-matter.html

The China factor In Palaweños’ rejection of partition posted April 22, 2021 at 12:05 am by Rudy Romero

Since the convening of the First Congress, legislators have filed and obtained approval of bills seeking the partitioning of long-unitary provinces. Thus, Zamboanga became three provinces (Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, and Zamboanga Sibugay), became three provinces (Samar, Northern Samar and Western samar), Iloilo gave way to four provinces (Ilolo, Capiz, Antique and Aklan), Mountain Province gave way to four provinces (Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga and Bontoc), Davao became three provinces (Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental), Mindoro became Mindoro Occidental and Mindoro Oriental, Nueva Vizcaya acquired a sister-province (Quirino), Aurora was carved out of Quezon and Cotabato gave way to four provinces (Cotabato, North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat).

In all of those cases the come-on argument was economic—or, more precisely, fiscal. The newly created province would have its own budget, its own administrative structure—with all the opportunities for dispensation of patronage that offers - its own IRA (internal revenue allowance) and its own nationally funded projects; the municipalities making up the new province would henceforth have more financial resources at their disposal than they had before, which would make them more capable of pursuing their pet projects.

On the political plane, the carving out of a new province would be the best way to maintain peace between the ruling political family and a challenging political clan. This has been the case in most provincial partitionings: Its grip on mother-province political power and the challenging political clan will now have its own domain. This has often been the case for provincial partitionings, particularly in Muslim .

The Filipino people should have expected that the partitioning of this country’s third- largest island into three provinces would follow the historical pattern and that the plebiscite for the Palawenos’ approval of the partition was a foregone conclusion. After all, the island province’s leading politicians, including the powerful Alvarezes, were all in favor of the partition. They all would now have their own turfs.

To their great shock, and to that of the rest of their countrymen, the Palaweños turned out in force to reject the partition law partitioning their beautiful island, which was said to be this country’s last frontier. In so doing, the Palawenos signalled that they did not want to be separated from one another; they let it be known that they wanted to remain, one, united Palaweños people.

I am inclined that there was a second factor at work in the Palaweños’ decision to remain unpartitioned and stay unitary. That was the China factor - more precisely, anti- China sentiment. The Palaweños were mindful that their island, which hosts the westernmost command of the AFP (armed Forces of the Philippines), is the part of their country that is closest to China and that Palawan is part of the Philippines’ frontline vis-a-vis the country that has been openly violating Philippine sovereignty. The people of Palawan, of which the outlying municipality of Kalayaan is a part, realized that China’s illegal incursions are getting ever closer to their island.

President Rodrigo Duterte has made it perfectly clear that he has no stomach for fighting with the Chinese bully, but if, by some happenstance, hostilities were to break out between China and the Philippines, Palawan would very likely be the battle line.

Not much has been broadcast or written about it, but I think that success was achieved by the anti-partition people who argued—often in whispers—that Palawan would provide a better defense against China if it remained one, unpartitioned island.

Rejecting the partition of their beautiful island was a magnificent decision by the Palaweños. Bravo.

https://manilastandard.net/opinion/columns/business-class-by-rudy- romero/352495/the-china-factor-in-palawe-os-rejection-of- partition.html

Why Chinese fishermen are in the WPS

By: Antonio T. Carpio - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:08 AM April 22, 2021 China claims that part of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) enclosed by the nine-dash line is a traditional fishing ground of Chinese fishermen. That would make about 80 percent of the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the WPS a traditional fishing ground of Chinese fishermen. This Chinese claim, however, has been rejected in the Award of the arbitral tribunal at The Hague. The arbitral tribunal expressly ruled that in the EEZ all historic rights, which include traditi of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or Unclos. China has made the same traditional fishing rightsonal claim fishing in rights,the EEZs have of Indonesiabeen “extinguished” and Vietnam, upon and the both effectivity countries in 1994have forcefully rejected the Chinese claim on the same ground that there are no traditional fishing rights in their EEZs under Unclos. waters landward of the archipelagic baselines. The waters of the Philippine EEZ in the WPS Traditionalare not archipelagic fishing rights, waters. under Under Unclos, customary can exist international only in “archipelagic law, traditional waters” fishing which rights are may also exist in the territorial sea. This is why the Award declared that the territorial waters of Scarborough Shoal are the traditional fishing ground of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino fishermen. In the EEZ, however, there are no fishing rights by other states without the express consent of the adjacent coastal state.

There is actually a more sinister reason why Chinese fishing vessels roam en masse in the WPS. In July 2019, following the ramming in Reed Bank of the Filipino fishing vessel F/B Gem-Ver by a steel-hulled Chinese fishing vessel, President Duterte gave a justification for the presence in Reed Bank of the offending Chinese fishing vessel. President Duterte

disclosedfar to the nation for the first time that he had a “verbal agreement” with Chinese President Xi Jinping allowing Chinese Pastor fishing Apollo vessel sQuiboloy to fish in in Philippine his TV show. EEZ Presidential in the WPS. “As as I’m concerned, I’m the owner, and I’m just giving the fishing rights.ment Galit with sila kungPresident bakit ko daw pinapaisda,” Mr. Duterte told legal counsel Salvador Panelo declared that the President’s verbal agree Xi was “legally binding.” between President Duterte and President Xi. The exclusive right of Filipinos to fish in their Sen.EEZ isLeila a sovereign de Lima filedright a which resolution the President seeking a cannot Senate waiv investigatione or give away on the unless “verbal allowed agreement” in a treaty ratified by the Senate. The public also has the right to know how many Chinese fishing vessels are allowed to fish in the WPS, considering that China has the largest fishing fleet in the world numbering at least 200,000 vessels. The public also has the right to know what months of the year the Chinese can fish, and what is the allowable fish catch in tonnage they can take from Philippine EEZ. The public must also know how long the fishing agreement will last. Unfortunately, the Senate never conducted any hearing. By neglecting to investigate the nstitutional power to ratify treaties. President’s “verbal agreement,” the Senate allowed the President to continue with an Theunconstitutional strong diplomatic act at proteststhe expense filed of by the Foreign Senate’s Secretary co Teodoro Locsin Jr., as well as the strong warnings issued by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, are not being taken seriously by the Chinese because they know they have a fishing agreement with President Duterte. The e Chinese. The Chinese, using huge steel-hulled trawlers, are taking fish from Philippine EEZ at the expense Presidentof Filipino must fishermen come whoclean only on the use terms wooden of his fishing “verbal boats ag reement”with outriggers. with th The Filipino fishermen are complaining of drastically declining fish catch in the WPS. The Philippines is now importing galunggong from China, the same fish that Chinese fishermen scoop in the WPS.

After President Duterte leaves office on June 30, 2022, the new administration may decide to file an arbitration case to stop China from fishing in the WPS. The Chinese may invoke their star witnesses to p “verbal agreement” with President Duterte, and present him, together with Panelo, as their rove the existence of the “verbal agreement.”

https://opinion.inquirer.net/139537/why-chinese-fishermen-are-in-the- wps#ixzz6sj7Q2hXc

Ganging up on a good thing

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:09 AM April 22, 2021 Paranoid government officials sank to a new low this week when they attempted to harass, - es that have spontaneously exploded all over the country. intimidate, and “red tag” ordinary citizens behind the community pantri On April 19, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) shared on its official Facebook pages posts making the ludicrous claim that the humble community pantries were being used to recruit citizens into the communist movement. The Quezon City Police District did the same and went a step further, swooping down on a number of these pantries and asking volunteers to fill up forms requiring personal information, earning the police a warning from the National Privacy Commission.

That they were profiling the community pantry organizers was baldly admitted by NTF-Elcac spokesperson Lt. Gen Antonio Parlade Jr,, who said in a radio interview that of course the task force was look es, chini- nandoon sila sa community, meron silang propaganda na ginagawa. May sinasabi silang gutom ang mga tao ingdahil into sa thekapalpakan background ng gobyerno, of the leaders: kung “Y ano- check ’yan. Habang

Wait: No one in the administration actually thought of raising theano point pa.” that it would be a public-relations disaster to gang up on an initiative that was plainly about people helping other people? That there is indeed appalling hunger and despair out there that the barely able to stanch, and so coming down hard on a spontaneous, immediately popular movement to share food and other necessities would be downright odiousgovernment in the “ayuda” eyes of theis public?

But no. Eager-beaver minions of the administration, helped along by its professional troll army that was strangely beside itself with fury at the sight of scores of the impoverished lining up either to partake of a clump of vegetables and rice or donate one themselves, went ahead and gleefully disparaged, slandered, and red-tagged the community pantries. The threat was so real that Ana Patricia Non, the 26-year-old entrepreneur behind the first makeshift community pantry on Maginhawa Street in Quezon City, had to stop operations on April 20 and turn away those who had lined up as early as 3 a.m., fearing for her life and those of the volunteers.

As if the red-tagging were not enough, the government also tried to stifle the citizen movement with red tape. Interior Undersecretary Martin Diño said organizers had to first secure a permit before they could be allowed to put up their own community pantry; this was the same guy that just days ago had threatened to arrest desperate folk lining up early for badly needed cash aid from the government, supposedly because they were violating quarantine protocols. That brain-dead thre department the same fate it gave to his latest howler, which only added to the impression of a bewildered government shamed and shakenat was to quickly its bones shot b ydown the radical by Diño’s idea own of citizens fending for themselves.— That the comm pandemic and the economic blight was, of course, clear to all but the most rabid DDS (Duterte Diehardunity Supporters) pantries were and administration an indictment ofofficials. the administration (Speaking of’s DDS, response who are to the wont to dema from any dissenter: Where are the DDS community pantries?) Poor Filipinos in the Greater Metro Manila Areand “ano displaced ang ambag by the mo?” new — lockdownwhat’s your have contribution reason to feel to aggrieved,society — as just over half of them have received the subsidy they were promised a dismaying P1,000 each or P4,000 per family. Given that inadequacy, why would anyone in officialdom, or their raving partisans, begrudge the inspiring citizen volunteerism— that has sprung up there are now some 350 community pantries all over the country, put up by groups of citizens, churches, villages, even police and fire stations to try to fill the glaring gaps in the government— response? — Fortunately, many local government units have embraced the community pantries and vowed to support, rather than curtail, their activities. Malacañang itself, sensing the fierce public backlash, told the anticommunist task force to leave the community pantries alone, while Quezon City Police District Director Brig. Gen. A

Philippine National Police chief Debold Sinas issued separntonioate Yarra statements had to denying issue a “sincere they had orderedapology” the to Non, police assuring to profile her the of or“safety and protection.” Interior Secretary Eduardo Año and

ganizers of community pantries, and that such “selfless Lettingacts of kindness” loose their should mad dogs be “encouraged at simple bamboo and supported.” stalls manned by weary, traumatized citizens finding solace in helping others is among the dumbest ideas the powers that be can think of hence perhaps the dire straits the country is in.

—

https://opinion.inquirer.net/139535/ganging-up-on-a-good-thing#ixzz6sj7cWMVG

We need evidence-based policies and approaches, and fewer generals

04:02 AM April 22, 2021

Our mobility restriction under ECQ and now back to MECQ is but a short-term intervention to prevent the surge of COVID-19. But the government appears to have no new strategies and efforts to fix or contain the pandemic, so our nation continues to suffer in medical care and the economy.

Our leaders said the lockdown might slow down the spread of the virus, but the high number of positive cases and deaths daily does not lie.

What we need are evidence-based policies and commonsensical approaches, like allowing outdoor activities and exposure to morning sunlight, and providing breathing space especially for the elderly and the poor in cramped houses. Sadly, as one Inquirer columnist observed, Filipinos have strategies for family survival but none for national survival.

Our national leadership should heed the suggestion to man the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases with more doctors than generals. As Jean Kerr wrote in “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you have not DIOSDAgraspedDO the V. situation.” CALONGE

https://opinion.inquirer.net/139552/we-need-evidence-based-policies-and- approaches-and-fewer-generals#ixzz6sj7o8S3o

Race of heroes (2)

My experience has taught me that there is nothing redeeming about war. War is only gruesome death and senseless destruction. Published 10 hours ago On April 22, 2021 12:30 AM By Chito Lozada @tribunephl_cloz The following is the continuation of the courageous stand of the 10th Battalion Combat Team, which is the only armored tank motorized unit of the Philippine contingent during the Korean War, as recounted by retired Philippine Army Major Maximo Young, a true Filipino hero:

“I reconnoitered the immediate surroundings via the tank’s periscope. Thence, I maneuvered unto the top of the tank. Quickly thereafter, I successfully grabbed the machine gun atop the tank’s turret, and fired relentlessly at the direction of the enemies.

“With continuous machine gun fire, I was able to repulse the advancing enemy forces and avoided costly loss of lives among our ranks. This battle was recorded in Korean history as the Battle of Miudong/Syngue and was hailed as the first battle won by Filipino soldiers in a foreign soil.

“In the Battle of Yuldong, the biggest battle that the Filipino soldiers fought in the Korean War, we were given the permission to withdraw because we were severely outnumbered.

“As the Battle of Yuldong turned fiercest, we stood our ground against all odds. We willingly pressed on to fight a numerically superior force of Chinese soldiers in such a savage close-quarters combat. The ferocious battle lasted from 2200 hours of 22 April through the wee and jet-black hours of the morning of 23 April until noon of that day in 1951.

“Despite the huge disparity in numbers, the 900-man 10th BCT clashed with the numerically superior 40,000 Chinese and North Korean militia who eventually backtracked and withdrew.

“Exactly 70 years ago, from 22 to 23 April 1951, 900 Filipino soldiers of the 10th BCT of the Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea successfully defended and threw back the numerically superior elements of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army’s 44th Infantry Division and the North Korean People’s Army. The enemy forces numbering about 40,000 advanced in seeming massive torrents, in non-stop, no-let-up fighting that drew widespread admiration among the United Nations Command (UNC) forces, after the enemies’ routing. “It was in the battle at Yuldong that the Filipinos once again proved their bravery in combat, which made fitting the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur when he said: ‘Give me 10,000 Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.’

“At the height of the gun battle in Yuldong, the Filipino soldiers were initially pinned down.

“Still, however, the Filipinos managed to launch a counter-attack, repulsing and driving the Chinese and North Koreans away. This, despite the fact that the Filipino soldiers who were defending a five-kilometer stretch of what was termed as the Utah Line, were left on their own after the Turkish forces of the UNC fled. Those Turkish forces who were earlier stationed on the right flank, abandoned their post, thereby rendering the Reconnaissance Company of the 10th BCT completely exposed.

“As a soldier, I saw action, too, in World War II. Indeed, I have fought for the defense of freedom and democracy, which are precepts that are dear to our motherland, against foreign adversaries in three international wars: World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

“I have been shot and strafed. I have seen my comrades die in battle and in turn have killed my country’s enemy-combatants. I have seen the worst of human nature in war. And my experience has taught me that there is nothing redeeming about war. War is only gruesome death and senseless destruction.

“And war involves tremendous remorse.

“By the grace of God, I am still here and alive.” The words of Major Maximo Young, 98 years old, should be enshrined in the hearts of Filipinos who face adversities that are similarly daunting but, which through perseverance and faith in the most High, will always be overcome.

https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/04/22/race-of-heroes-2/

China’s deceitful expansion tactics By Joseph Bosco From salami-slice aggression to invasion by swarm, China continues its successful gray-zone expansionism in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

While modulating its activities to evade a significant Western response, Beijing is creating facts on the ground, on the ocean and in the air in each of the region’s hot spots — while encouraging Pyongyang to do the same on the Korean Peninsula.

Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) promise to the administration of former US president Barack Obama, the communist government continues to occupy territory it seized from the Philippines, a US treaty ally. Contrary to a sweeping repudiation by the UN arbitral tribunal, Beijing builds and militarizes artificial islands in the South China Sea that it falsely claims as part of its vast maritime domain.

The world was transfixed by the sheer audacity of the engineering feat and the unprecedented sea and land grab, but did nothing during this period of rapid expansionism. Even the ever-activist environmental community was largely silent about the wanton destruction of millennia-old coral reefs.

At his confirmation hearing, former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson described China’s actions as “extremely worrisome ... akin to Russia’s taking of Crimea.”

He faulted the Obama administration for not taking steps to address the situation.

“The failure of a response has allowed them just to keep pushing the envelope on this,” he said.

He pledged a bold new approach by the administration of former US president Donald Trump: “The way we’ve got to deal with this is, we’ve got to show back up in the region with our traditional allies in Southeast Asia. We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands is not going to be allowed.”

However, in the early stage of his term, Trump opted instead for a mostly “America first,” trade-focused approach that excoriated US allies for not doing enough in their individual and collective defense.

There was no follow-up action to halt — let alone, reverse — China’s actions by the US, the UN or the international community. The then-commander of the US Pacific Fleet mockingly dismissed the island-building project as “the Great Wall of Sand.”

Instead, the US administration concentrated on denying Beijing the opportunity to exploit its illicit territorial claims by controlling the world’s access to the South China Sea. The US Navy undertook a campaign of robust freedom of navigation operations, greatly expanded over the pallid and erratic Obama administration efforts, to challenge Beijing’s maritime sovereignty claims and keep the sea lanes open.

The administration of US President Joe Biden started off by following the Trump administration’s approach, rather than returning to Obama’s.

In response, during US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to the region last month, Beijing announced its largest-ever naval exercise, ostensibly designed to rival the biennial US Navy-led Rim of the Pacific drills.

China Central Television on March 15 reported that the northern, eastern and southern theater commands of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army organized “combat- oriented” exercises in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea respectively.

The Maritime Safety Administration in Beijing announced that the exercises in the South China Sea alone would run for the full month of March.

According to China’s quasi-official Global Times newspaper, China has held “several rounds of military drills” in the same general area over the past few months. US Admiral Philip Davidson, retiring commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, last month told the US Senate Armed Services Committee: “The military balance in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more unfavorable for the United States and our allies. With this imbalance, we are accumulating risk that may embolden China to unilaterally change the ‘status quo’ before our forces may be able to deliver an effective response.”

China’s assertiveness is not confined to the maritime domain. In the past few years, it began an accelerating series of military flights straddling and crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait, then extended into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The frequency and scope of the intrusions was methodically expanded and regularized. This made each overflight seem less remarkable or provocative, while at the same time drawing on Taiwan’s responsive resources in a relentless campaign of attrition.

To avoid exhausting its personnel and wearing down its equipment, Taiwan no longer scrambles its aircraft for each event and monitors the movements from the ground instead. Optically, it conveys the image of China acting routinely in its own airspace with Taiwan a mere observer of the scene.

The salami-slicing technique has gradually expanded into a kind of aerial swarming, as Chinese aircraft approach Taiwan simultaneously at different altitudes and from different directions, enveloping Taiwan in a diverse network of air operations simulating an actual Chinese attack. US Admiral John Aquilino, the new Indo-Pacific commander, last month warned the US Senate Armed Services Committee that the threat to Taiwan is even “closer than many of us think.”

Beijing has been pursuing a similar swarming tactic on the water, to press its claim on Japan’s Senkaku Islands, which China calls the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), [also claimed by Taiwan]. It employs a fleet of fishing boats protected by China’s coast guard, which was recently granted new powers to use force to defend China’s claimed interests.

Chinese incursions into Japanese waters have gone on for years, but the increased volume and intensity of the activities reveal the potential for the swarming to be put to military purposes.

Massing of fishing and quasi-military vessels is also occurring in Philippine waters, putting that government in a quandary over how to respond.

At some point, the concentration of fishing fleets, exercising naval ships and quasi- military vessels in one or more of the region’s flashpoints could effectively constitute a blockade or quarantine and be a step away from landing an invasion force, depending upon the armed nature of the personnel manning the boats. Yet, the situation would be ambiguous enough to confuse authorities in the targeted countries and supporting nations.

What might start out as an apparent temporary or transitory situation could easily morph into a permanent Chinese presence that could be broken only by overt military action that would then trigger a full-fledged Chinese military response. Being labeled as the aggressor in such a gray-zone conflict scenario would significantly inhibit restorative action by other nations. As Sun Tzu (孫子) and communist doctrine instruct, China would then “win without fighting.”

To preclude such a result, Biden and his national security team must declare publicly that Washington will help defend Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines under any and all circumstances.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2021/04/22/2003756125

US fails to understand that it no longer calls the shots in Asia Arrogant intrusion into Indian waters was counterproductive Brahma Chellaney April 21, 2021 17:00 JST

USS John Paul Jones, pictured in January 2020: the guided-missile destroyer sailing in India's EEZ sparked outrage in India. (Handout photo from the U.S. Navy)

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author of nine books, including "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan." https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/US-fails-to-understand-that-it-no-longer-calls-the- shots-in-Asia

US’ distorted view of the China threat risks creating a cold war nightmare

• China is no innocent bystander and many of its actions deserve a strong international response • But paranoia among US and its allies distorts their view of China from being a mild revisionist power seeking influence to representing an existential threat –

Nicholas Ross Smith

After spending a summer in the Soviet Union in 1960, American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner came to believe that the intensifying Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was mostly a product of distorted perceptions.

Bronfenbrenner observed five common distortions: (1) they are the aggressors; (2) their government exploits and deludes the people; (3) the masses are not really sympathetic to the regime; (4) they cannot be trusted, and; (5) their policy verges on madness.

For Bronfenbrenner, this phenomenon was best metaphorised as a mirror image in twisted glass. The problem was that such distortions resulted in dangerous escalations and made rationally unthinkable outcomes, such as nuclear war, seem a potential necessary evil to stop the other side from fulfilling their dark desires. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3130308/us-distorted-view-china- threat-risks-creating-cold-war-nightmare

Threat of Chinese sanctions tests Japan's resolve on Taiwan Heavy price tag looms over Tokyo for its decision to stand with the US

Protesters march against Japan's decision to nationalize the Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by China as the Diaoyu, in September 2012. Japan's government and businesses could face renewed pushback over its latest leaders' statement with the U.S. on Taiwan. © Reuters

YURI MOMOI, China bureau chiefApril 21, 2021 10:33 JST TOKYO -- Four days after Japan and the U.S. issued a joint leaders' statement that mentioned Taiwan for the first time in 52 years, Chinese President Xi Jinping broke his silence at the Boao Forum for Asia on Tuesday, railing against what he saw as foreign meddling.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Threat-of-Chinese-sanctions-tests- Japan-s-resolve-on-Taiwan

The Taiwan risk gorilla kicks Kim to Asia's sidelines Beijing clampdown on Hong Kong has put Taipei on edge William Pesek April 22, 2021 05:00 JST

A Taiwanese fighter aircraft in foreground flies on the flank of a Chinese bomber as it passes near Taiwan in February 2020: the real audience is officials in Tokyo and Washington. © Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense/AP

William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of "Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades." https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/The-Taiwan-risk-gorilla-kicks-Kim-to-Asia-s-sidelines

Taking stock of EU's Indo-Pacific strategy Hannan Hussain

On April 19, all 27 European Union (EU) member states formally adopted the "EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific" during a Foreign Affairs Council meeting. The 10-page document aligns the union's "strategic focus, presence and actions" toward the Indo-Pacific by putting regional security, trade cooperation, supply chain support, and coordinated maritime consensus at the heart of a "principled" global actor role. In a subtle departure from U.S.-backed containment theatrics, the EU's regional commitment is focused more on bringing "added value" to all of its existing bilateral and multilateral relations in the region. These determinations underline a degree of inclusivity, as well as vigilance of countries' firm territorial and sovereign red-lines.

However, successful enforcement of the EU's role as a "cooperative partner" in the Indo-Pacific would merit statecraft on three key fronts.

Regional architecture for maritime peace

The assumptions associated with the new EU strategy include an increase in geopolitical competition, along with the risks afforded to "free and open" maritime supply routes, maritime domain awareness, and rules-based "freedom of navigation." But Brussels must note that these strategic rationales are not new, and have been tapped by Washington and Tokyo to undercut a regionally acknowledged ASEAN-China maritime code of conduct build-up. Therefore, EU advocacy for maritime peace is welcome, but it should be founded on the advancement of indigenous dialogue between legitimate territorial parties of the region.

It is here that the EU's interests are best served by ruling out its implementation of the Critical Maritime Routes Indian Ocean (CRIMARIO) framework. This is because the framework puts a premium on "maritime surveillance, policing, investigation and judicial matters," effectively presuming peace in Asia is best served as a foreign import.

Similarly, the EU's defense for a "meaningful European naval presence" in the region risks undesirable blowback. First, the EU's long-term peace-making goals in Asia could be captured as unmistakably unilateral, should such naval presence persist. Second, any unilateralism can put a slew of promising EU cooperation frameworks on ice: the EU's "Enhancing Security Cooperation in and with Asia" project, and its strategic partnership with ASEAN. Both these frameworks could carry limited value for Asian maritime security concerns, once Brussels operates outside the confines of a dialogue- based contribution.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-21/Taking-stock-of-EU-s-Indo-Pacific-strategy- ZDuEdc3wPu/index.html Digital Authoritarianism With Russian Characteristics?

LEONID KOVACHICH, ANDREI KOLESNIKOV

Is the Russian government seeking to emulate China’s strategic use of technology for social management and political control as part of an intensifying crackdown on the country’s political opposition? To be sure, Chinese authorities’ widespread use of high-tech tools for such purposes has more than piqued the curiosity of the Russian security establishment. Yet there are vast gaps between the Russian government’s aspirations and its actual ability to harness digital tools such as facial recognition software using artificial intelligence, or China’s nascent social credit system.

Russia’s approach is colored by wider geopolitical considerations. The unmistakable convergence of Russian and Chinese leaders’ political outlooks is a by-product of their increasingly adversarial relationships with the United States. Yet this alignment falls far short of a proper alliance or security partnership. Indeed, Sino-Russian relations are more complicated than they appear at first glance due to vast asymmetries between the two powers’ economic and political clout. Nor have Moscow and Beijing fully overcome lingering sources of mutual mistrust.

Contrary to commonly held perceptions and the rhetoric of Russian politicians, the Kremlin has big hurdles to overcome as it tries to decouple from Western technology in critically important areas. What’s more, Russia’s own use of digital repression is considerably less prevalent than such repression in China, where technology is deployed on a mass scale to surveil, control, and censor citizens said to be challenging political and social stability. https://carnegie.ru/2021/04/21/digital-authoritarianism-with-russian- characteristics-pub-84346

Fukushima waste water plan won’t win public confidence, no matter how hard Japan tries

• -ups is only one reason • The nuclear industry’s history of secrecy and cover disaster and its aftermath has Tepco’s incompetent and at times dishonest handling so far of the 2011 Peter Wynn Kirby shattered what’s left of people’s trust

As the Japanese proverb goes, “Let the past drift away like water.” Yet with radiation, letting go is not so simple. Even as the Japanese government tries to rid itself of the catastrophic after-effects of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, radioactive traces stubbornly remain.

Japan announced last week its intention to release about 1.25 million tonnes of waste water collected from the bowels of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. The water to be released into the Pacific Ocean contains tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope with a half-life of over 12 years. The unwelcome news has provoked uproar both within Japan and among neighbouring countries.

For over a decade, authorities have been engaged in a messy, difficult, frustrating, even Sisyphean task, flushing the ruined footprint of the power station with water to keep the slumped nuclear fuel there from triggering a chain reaction. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3130239/fukushima-waste-water- plan-wont-win-public-confidence-no-matter-how

“Moving Towards A Sustainable Future Through ESG”

The interconnectedness of challenges in public health, the economy, and the environment cannot be ignored. These have hampered global economic growth and punctuated the importance and urgency of building a more sustainable and resilient future. However, according to the University of Oxford and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), out of the $14.6 trillion government-committed spending by the 50 largest economies in 2020, only 2.5% were for programs that likely contributed to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, lower pollution, and restoring degraded natural systems.

In the Philippines, there has been an increasing reason to pursue a “green” and sustainable economy that tackles prevailing issues such as economic growth, environmental stewardship, climate resilience, and public health. Through effective and efficient policies, and systems, and in doing business, aid by innovative technologies, we can responsibly and efficiently utilize our natural resources, eliminate pollution, permit real-time monitoring of environmental conditions, and integrate energy-efficient infrastructures

The private sector, without a doubt, plays a vital role in advancing the country’s sustainable development. With its initiatives across the Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) principles, businesses actively lead in achieving a sustainable future by pushing for green and sustainable investments, responsible and efficient business operations and reporting, and controlling pollution generation. These are also aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of promoting responsible consumption and production. Hence, every private sector-led initiative grounded on ESG holds a promise of a better and more sustainable future that generates positive long-term returns for the economy, society, and the environment.

At the same time, however, we recognize that the private sector alone cannot address the far-reaching changes that sustainability will require. The government, and with the help of civil society’s lenses, should set the much-needed responsive policies and frameworks that are conducive to doing business while ensuring compliance with ESG principles.

In line with this year’s Earth Day Celebration, the Stratbase ADR Institute, in partnership with the Philippine Business for Environmental Stewardship (PBEST), organized a virtual town hall discussion (vTHD) entitled, “Moving Towards A Sustainable Future Through ESG” held on 21 April 2021, Wednesday. This virtual event sough to serve as a platform for the private sector to highlight their ESG initiatives, specifically their efforts in pushing for “green” investments and incorporating ESG principles into their business operations, reporting, and asset diversifications amid the growing need to create a more sustainable economy. https://adrinstitute.org/2021/04/21/adri-vthd-moving-towards-a-sustainable-future- through-esg/