VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The United States and Japan announced on Wednesday a new trade partnership to boost cooperation on labor, environment and digital trade issues, with an emphasis on "third country concerns," a reference to China's state-driven economic policies.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who is in Tokyo to meet with new Japanese government ministers, said initial meetings of the U.S.-Japan Partnership on Trade would take place early in 2022, with periodic meetings on a regular basis.

"This partnership will deepen the cooperation between the United States and Japan that has defined our strong bilateral trade relationship," Tai said in a statement issued by her office in Washington.

"Our close collaboration will support the Biden-Harris Administration’s economic framework for the Indo-Pacific and help create sustainable, resilient, inclusive, and competitive trade policies that lift up our people and economies."

USTR's statement made no mention of the new forum as a body aimed at negotiating new trade agreements between the world's largest and third-largest economies.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told Tai at the start of talks in Tokyo that the aim was to further deepen the Japan-U.S. alliance and strengthen bilateral coordination to achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific.

"Based on the strong Japan-U.S. economic relations, we'd like to further deepen the Japan-U.S. alliance, and strengthen Japan-U.S. coordination for the achievement of a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said.

Earlier, the foreign ministry said in a statement that the new partnership would allow the two countries to hold discussions on their shared global agenda, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and talk about bilateral trade issues.

The United States and Japan are set to begin new talks to address concerns over U.S. "Section 232" national security tariffs on steel and aluminum and curbing global excess capacity for the metals largely centered in China. The talks follow a U.S. quota deal with the European Union to allow around 4 million tons of EU-produced steel duty-free into the United States annually.

Japan has also sought to negotiate a broader agreement with the United States after striking a limited trade deal with former President Donald Trump in 2019 that staved off his threat of higher duties on imported cars, and to coax Washington into returning to a Pacific Rim trade pact.

USTR said the new partnership instead would focus on addressing labor and environmental-related priorities, trade facilitation, a supportive digital ecosystem and cooperation in regional and multilateral trade forums, the latter a reference to the World Trade Organization, which holds a major ministerial meeting at the end of November in Geneva.

The Biden administration is working to rebuild trade ties with allies that became strained during Trump's presidency, with the aim of building a broader coalition to confront China's subsidies and other state-driven economic policies.

The USTR statement mentioned such "third country concerns" as a focus of the new group.

It said the partnership would be chaired by USTR and Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade.(Reuters)

Pakistan's parliament on Wednesday passed a law allowing electronic vote counting despite furious protests from the opposition which said it had been pushed through by the government to rig the next election.

Opposition members tore up copies of the law, chanted slogans and called Khan a vote thief before walking out.

"I believe that this is the blackest day of our parliamentary history. We condemn it," the leader of the opposition in parliament, Shehbaz Sharif, said.

The government secured 221 votes against the opposition's 203.

The government has for months been trying to pass the law that will allow overseas Pakistanis to cast their ballot online.

Prime Minister Imran Khan enjoys widespread support among some nine million Pakistanis living abroad. The next national election is scheduled for 2023.

Pakistan has a history of parties alleging vote rigging after every election. Khan believes that electronic vote counting will ensure transparency.

The opposition and many political analysts say Khan is unlikely to secure another term.

The government has been grappling with a chronic economic crisis and rising inflation is at odds with the military over the appointment of a new head of the Inter Services Intelligence spy agency.

The opposition alleges the military brought Khan to power in a rigged 2018 election, a charge both the government and the army deny, and said it would challenge the new law in court.(Reuters)

Thailand's legislature shot down on Wednesday a draft bill aimed at strengthening democracy, in which its backers sought to scrap or overhaul of key institutions they said had been hijacked by the military elite.

A joint session of the lower house of parliament and the Senate voted 473-206 to reject the bill, with six abstentions, which called for a constitution passed under a military junta in 2017 to be changed to ensure a clear separation of powers.

Thailand's government is still led by the architects of a 2014 coup, who remained in power after a 2019 election that its rivals say was stacked in the military's favour.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the coup leader, has denied that.

The draft was backed by 130,000 petitioners and sought to abolish the 250-seat, junta-appointed Senate, and restructure the Constitutional Court and key state agencies.

The government's critics, including a formidable student-led protest movement that emerged last year, say democracy has been subverted by the military and its royalists allies, who wield influence over independent institutions.

"The 2017 constitution protects and enables General Prayuth to extend his power by providing mechanisms of control through the Senate and independent agencies," one of the bill's proponents, Parit Wacharasindhu, told legislators.

Since 2019, 21 bills have been proposed to parliament seeking constitutional amendments, only one of which has passed, which sought changes to the balloting system.

Pro-government lawmakers defended the constitution, reiterating that it was endorsed in a referendum and that the coup was necessary to address a political crisis.

"To only fix the problem of coup and its consequences without addressing the political problems that came before that, will that lead to a perfect democracy?" lawmaker Wanchai Sornsiri said during the debate.

Thailand has seen 20 constitutions and 13 coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.(Reuters)

Resource-rich Western Australia state on Wednesday unveiled a long-awaited bill aimed at protecting Indigenous heritage, but drew immediate fire from Aboriginal groups because a government minister will keep final say over development decisions.

Indigenous heritage protection has become a hot button issue since miner Rio Tinto (RIO.AX), (RIO.L) legally destroyed culturally significant rock shelters for an iron ore mine 18 months ago, sparking widespread public outrage.

"It's a devastating day for Aboriginal heritage," said Tyronne Garstone, chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council.

"Fundamentally, this bill will not protect Aboriginal cultural heritage and will continue a pattern of systematic structural racial discrimination against Aboriginal people."

Western Australia produces more than half of the world's traded iron ore, a key steel-making ingredient and Australia's most lucrative export, worth A$153 billion ($111 billion) in the year to end-June.

The new state legislation is at odds with the findings of a national inquiry into Rio's destruction last year of rock shelters at Juukan Gorge that showed evidence of continual human habitation stretching back 46,000 years into the last Ice Age.

The inquiry urged a new national protection framework and said Aboriginal traditional owners should be the top decision makers on development applications that could impact their heritage and have the power to withhold consent. 

The bill, which has been under revision for three years, was introduced to state parliament on Wednesday.

The state premier's department said it will focus on reaching agreement with Aboriginal groups and on obtaining full, prior and informed consent for development.

Aboriginal groups, however, said they had not been adequately consulted and they did not gain a right of appeal to a ministerial decision, a cornerstone of modernising the laws. Miners and developers will also be unable to appeal any ministerial decision.

In the decade to July 2020, miners submitted more than 460 applications to impact Aboriginal heritage sites and all but one were approved.

"What we have been delivered is ... the Minister making unchallenged decisions on whether cultural heritage may be destroyed," Tony Bevan, acting chief executive of the Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal Corp, said in a statement.

The bill also put a lot of extra bureaucratic requirements on poorly resourced and financed Aboriginal groups that many would be unable to meet, he added.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy, which represents miners including Rio, BHP Group (BHP.AX) and Fortescue Metals Group (FMG.AX) noted "extensive consultation" with government ministers, and said it could work with the new laws.

"We acknowledge that our industry hasn't always got things right, at times with deeply regrettable consequences," Chamber Chief Executive Paul Everingham said in a statement, adding that it remained committed to "respond to the priorities of local Indigenous people."

The rock shelters that Rio destroyed at Juukan Gorge had contained remnants of a 4,000 year old plaited hair belt that showed a genetic connection with the area's traditional owners.

Amid a public uproar, three senior executives including then chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques left the company and parliament launched a national enquiry into the incident. (Reuters)