VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday that a tougher security environment in the Taiwan Strait means Japan, the United States and others need to show strong resolve to come to Taiwan's defence if it were attacked.

"The most important thing now is to make sure that war doesn't break out in the Taiwan Strait," Aso, vice president of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said in a speech in Taipei during a three-day visit to Taiwan.

"I believe that now is the time for Japan, Taiwan, the United States and other like-minded countries to be prepared to put into action very strong deterrence," he said in remarks streamed online. "It's the resolve to fight."

He added that clearly showing the will to defend Taiwan was a form of deterrence. He did not specify China as the aggressor, but said it was crucial for Japan, as a neighbour of Taiwan, and other countries that are upholding international order, to send the message to China and the rest of the international community.

Aso is the most senior Japanese political official to visit Taiwan since 1972.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan's government strongly rejects China's sovereignty claims.

Speaking before Aso at the same forum, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said her government was committed to improving its defences and did not take the backing of its security partners for granted.

"While we don't seek military confrontation and hope for a peaceful, stable and beneficial coexistence with our neighbours, Taiwan is always ready to defend our democracy and way of life," she said.

Tensions over Taiwan have contributed to a decision by close U.S. ally Japan to boost its defence spending.

In 2021, Aso, then deputy prime minister, called any invasion of Taiwan by China a "threat to Japan's survival" and said Japan and the U.S. would defend Taiwan together should such an incident happen.

Those comments angered China, which said the remarks "harmed the political foundation of China-Japan relations."

Aso meet Tsai on Tuesday afternoon at the presidential office, where he told her about the popularity of Taiwanese comic books in Japan.

Tsai thanked Aso for the "encouragement" in his morning speech. (Reuters)

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan appealed against his conviction and three-year sentence on corruption charges on Tuesday, four days after he was jailed and barred from politics in a case threatening to worsen political uncertainty.

His lawyer, Naeem Panjutha, said the petition, challenging Khan's conviction on charges of selling state gifts unlawfully during his 2018-2022 term as prime minister, had been filed in Islamabad High Court, which will hear the case on Wednesday.

The petition seen by Reuters described the conviction as "without lawful authority, tainted with bias", and said Khan, 70, had not received an adequate hearing.

Noting that the court rejected a list of witnesses for the defence a day before reaching its verdict, it said a conviction without hearing the defence case was a "gross travesty of justice, and a slap in the face of due process and fair trial".

The verdict was also a violation of high court orders which had called for a review of whether the case involved genuine criminal charges before coming to the final ruling, the petition said.

The court had expedited the trial after Khan refused to attend hearings, defying repeated summonses and arrest warrants.

INSTABILITY

Khan has been at the heart of political turmoil since he was ousted as prime minister in a vote of no confidence last year, raising concern about stability in the nuclear-armed country as it grapples with an economic crisis.

With Khan out of the political picture for now, all eyes should be turning to the upcoming election, South Asia institute director at Washington-based The Wilson Center Michael Kugelman told Reuters.

Any delay in the election would fuel more anger among Pakistan's public and inject more uncertainty into the political environment, he said.

"That volatility and uncertainty could have implications for political stability but also the economy, if foreign investors and donors become reluctant to deploy more capital in such an environment," he said.

In June Pakistan secured a last-gasp $3 billion deal with the IMF, which has sought a consensus on policy objectives among all political parties ahead of general elections due by November.

Khan's legal team says he is being kept in abject conditions in a small, so-called C-class cell in a prison in Attock, near the capital Islamabad, with an open toilet, when he should qualify for a B-class cell with facilities including an attached washroom, newspapers, books and TV.

A request had been filed on his behalf for an A-class cell all the facilities he was entitled to.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, who spent several months in jail on drug trafficking charges he says were fabricated during Khan's tenure, said that Khan himself had been a proponent of uniformity in prisons.

"As far as the open washrooms, the jails have got only open washrooms, there are no separate washrooms, and it could be in Khan's knowledge that the cells where we were kept they were also the same," the minister told Geo News TV.

He said Khan could file an application in court that he shouldn't be kept with ordinary inmates.

"Whatever the court decides, it will be implemented and if he wants to have meals from home, he should seek a permission from court," he said. (Reuters)

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday sought to reassure the public after a spate of political scandals rocked his ruling party in recent months and amid continuing worries over inflation in the city-state.

In remarks made on the eve of Singapore's national day, Lee said his government would maintain "high standards of honesty, integrity, and propriety" after the anti-graft agency launched a rare investigation into a cabinet minister, and two lawmakers from the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) were forced to resign over an inappropriate relationship.

"Let there be no doubt: my government is determined to keep our system free of corruption and wrongdoing," he said in a televised address, wearing a shirt with Singapore's national colours of red and white.

Singapore is due to hold elections by 2025. The PAP has maintained a grip on power since Singapore became an independent nation in 1965.

Lee also addressed rising living costs in a country already considered among the world's most expensive.

"Inflation is still a problem for us, as it is for many countries," he said.

Singapore's yearly core inflation rate - which excludes private road transport and accommodation costs - eased to 4.2% in June from 4.7% in May.

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) chief Ravi Menon said last month that Singapore's inflation would ease significantly thanks to a tight monetary policy stance, but the central bank would "not switch from inflation-fighting mode to growth-supporting mode".

The MAS left monetary policy settings unchanged in April, after tightening five times in a row since October 2021, reflecting concerns over the city-state's growth outlook. (Reuters)

War crimes committed by Myanmar's military, including the bombing of civilians, have become "increasingly frequent and brazen", a team of United Nations investigators said in a report published on Tuesday.

The report by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), which covered the period between July 2022 and June 2023, said there was "strong evidence that the Myanmar military and its affiliate militias have committed three types of combat-related war crimes with increasing frequency and brazenness".

These crimes include the indiscriminate or disproportionate targeting of civilians using bombs and the burning of civilian homes and buildings, resulting at times in the destruction of entire villages, it said.

The report also cited "killings of civilians or combatants detained during operations".

"Our evidence points to a dramatic increase in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country, with widespread and systematic attacks against civilians, and we are building case files that can be used by courts to hold individual perpetrators responsible," said Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM.

Since a junta seized power two years ago, Myanmar has been plunged into chaos, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on opponents that saw Western countries re-impose sanctions.

A spokesperson for the junta could not be reached for comment on the findings made by U.N. investigators.

The junta has previously denied atrocities have taken place, saying it is carrying out a legitimate campaign against terrorists.

Although it has justified bombings as attacks against military targets, UN investigators said the Myanmar military "should have known or did know" that a large number of civilians were in or around the alleged targets when the attacks took place. (Reuters)