VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 11 - Chinese diplomats will meet with U.S. officials in Alaska on March 18 and 19, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and State Councillor Wang Yi, will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, “at the invitation of the United States”, said the spokesman Zhao Lijian.

China hopes the United States can move relations back onto a “healthy and stable” track, view relations objectively and rationally, forsake Cold War mentality and a zero-sum mindset, and to respect China’s sovereignty, Zhao said. (Reuters)

Mar. 11 - Tens of thousands of Hindu devotees plunged into India’s Ganges river on Thursday as the country kicked off one of the world’s largest religious festivals, even as officials reported the biggest spike in coronavirus cases for three months.

Hindu ascetics known as Naga sadhus, many naked apart from a coating of ash and carrying swords or tridents, led the bathers at the Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, in the northern town of Haridwar.

All participants at this year’s event, that runs until the end of April, are required to present a negative coronavirus test result before being allowed into the festival grounds, authorities said. But there was little evidence of social distancing in place on Thursday as bathers jostled at the riverbank.

Devout Hindus believe bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins, and during the Kumbh Mela brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.

More than 22,000 people had bathed in the holy river by 0800 local time (0230 GMT), police overseeing the festival told Reuters partner ANI, a number that was expected to rise significantly throughout the day.

Authorities said that more than 100 million people attended the festival in 2019, the last time it was held, a figure that most expect will be lower this year.

After an almost three-month lockdown last year that was one of the world’s harshest, India has relaxed almost all restrictions on movement since a peak in cases in September, including reopening vast stadiums for cricket matches, one of the country’s national obsessions.

However, India’s COVID-19 cases numbers are again surging, putting it among the top five countries reporting the most daily new infections.

Officials reported 22,854 new infections on Thursday, the highest in nearly three months, taking the country’s total to 11.3 million. Deaths rose by 126 to 158,189, health ministry data showed. (Reuters)

Mar. 11 - Seven people were killed when security forces opened fire on anti-junta protests in Myanmar on Thursday, witnesses and local media said, as rights group Amnesty International accused the military of adopting battle tactics against demonstrators.

Six people were killed in the central town of Myaing when forces fired on a protest, one man who took part in the demonstration and helped carry bodies to hospital, told Reuters by telephone. A health worker there confirmed all six deaths.

“We protested peacefully,” the 31-year-old man said. “I couldn’t believe they did it.”

One person was killed in the North Dagon district of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, domestic media said. Photographs posted on Facebook showed a man lying prone on the street, bleeding from a head wound.

Before Thursday’s deaths, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group has said more than 60 protesters have been killed and about 2,000 people detained by security forces since the Feb. 1 coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government.

Amnesty International accused the army of using lethal force against protesters and said many killings documented amounted to extrajudicial executions.

“These are not the actions of overwhelmed, individual officers making poor decisions,” said Joanne Mariner, Director of Crisis Response at Amnesty International.

“These are unrepentant commanders already implicated in crimes against humanity, deploying their troops and murderous methods in the open.”

A junta spokesman declined to give an immediate comment, but said there would be a news conference held by the military’s council in the capital Naypyitaw at 2 pm. (0730 GMT) on Thursday.

The junta has previously said it is acting with utmost restraint in handling what it describes as demonstrations by “riotous protesters” whom it accuses of attacking police and harming national security and stability.

Protests were also staged in half a dozen other towns, according to Facebook posts.

Overnight, people defied a curfew to hold several more candle lit vigils in parts of Yangon and also in Myingyan, south west of the second city of Mandalay.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday condemned violence against protesters and urged the army to show restraint, but failed to denounce the military takeover as a coup or threaten further action due to opposition from China and Russia.

U.S. SANCTIONS GENERAL’S CHILDREN

State media said the junta had removed Arakan Army (AA) insurgents from its list of terrorist groups because the faction has stopped attacks and in order to help establish peace across the country.

The move comes at a time the army is struggling to contain daily protests against the coup.

The AA is fighting for greater autonomy in the western Rakhine state and had become one of the most formidable forces in challenging an army that has been fighting various ethnic wars for seven decades.

In a bid to increase pressure on the military as it continues its crackdown, the U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on two children of military leader Min Aung Hlaing and six companies they control.

In New York, the United Nations Security Council condemned violence against peaceful protesters and called for the military to “exercise utmost restraint”.

But language that would have condemned the coup and threatened possible further action was removed from the British-drafted text, due to opposition by China, Russia, India and Vietnam.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he hoped the Security Council statement would push the military to realize it “is absolutely essential” that all prisoners are released and that the results of a November election are respected.

The army has justified the coup by saying that the election, won by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, was marred by fraud - an assertion rejected by the electoral commission. The junta has promised a new election within a year, but has not set a date. (Reuters)

Mar. 11 - South Korea will authorise the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for people aged 65 years and older, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Thursday, a move that will allow the country to ramp up its immunisation drive.

The measures are part of Beijing’s efforts to consolidate its increasingly authoritarian grip over the global financial hub, following the imposition of a sweeping national security law in June, which critics see as a tool to crush dissent.

Beijing is responding to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, which it saw as a threat to China’s national security. Since then, most high-profile democratic politicians and activists have been sent to jail or are in self-exile.

The changes virtually eliminate any possibility of the opposition affecting the outcome of elections in the former British colony, whose return to Chinese rule in 1997 came with a promise of a high degree of autonomy.

The blanket requirement for “patriotism” raises the risk that politicians will start competing over who is more loyal to Beijing, rather than who has the better ideas for how the city should be governed, analysts say.

The measures will alter the size and composition of Hong Kong’s legislature and an electoral committee selecting the chief executive in favour of pro-Beijing figures.

The committee will also be given powers to select many city legislators. A new mechanism will be set up to vet candidates and screen election winners’ behaviour to make sure only those seen as patriots rule Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Secretary for Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Erick Tsang has defined patriotism as “holistic love” for China, including the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Beijing had promised universal suffrage as an ultimate goal for Hong Kong in its mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Critics say the changes to the electoral system move Hong Kong towards the opposite direction, leaving the democratic opposition with the most limited space it has ever had since the 1997 handover, if any at all.

It is not clear what shape any future opposition could take and how its message could comply with loyalty requirements. (Reuters)