Thai prisons violate human rights, report says

Al Jazeera

Prison conditions contravene UN treaties barring torture and stipulating minimum prisoner rights, group says.

Inmates sit on the floor inside Klong Prem high-security prison in Bangkok in 2016 [Jorge Silva/Reuters]

Thailand’s prisons fail to meet international standards with inmates routinely shackled, beaten, and stuffed into overcrowded cells, an international human rights group said.

Thailand also has the highest incarceration rate in Southeast Asia, jailing 425 out of every 100,000 people, according to the report by the International Federation for Human Rights, which was released on Tuesday.

More than 260,000 inmates are incarcerated in 148 prisons with an originally estimated capacity of less than 120,000, the report said, with the massive overcrowding forcing inmates to live in harsh conditions. Tiếp tục đọc “Thai prisons violate human rights, report says”

Sea Change Awaits Trump in Thailand

Asia Sentinel

Sea Change Awaits Trump in Thailand

Thai Army: the east is red

Kingdom can no longer be counted on in a confrontation with China

Three months after his election, a month after inauguration, Donald Trump has not publicly mentioned Thailand.  Yet in a looming foreign policy crisis over the South China Sea, the seeds of which the president partly inherited and has partly sowed, the kingdom is poised to play an outsized and oppositional role.

China has territorial disputes over the South China Sea with five Southeast Asian nations and a sixth with Taiwan.  In July 2016, a UN maritime tribunal ruled China’s means of demarcating territory unlawful.  Beijing’s defiance notwithstanding, this ruling put most of China’s claims on shaky legal ground, to say nothing of its 3,000 acres of artificial islands constructed since 2013.

As candidate, Trump used the presidential debates to deliver an economic indictment against China—manufacturing threat, currency manipulator, climate change propagandist—and announced plans to increase the US Navy’s fleet from 272 to 350 ships.  If the China claims were aimed at viewers and votes, the naval announcement was likely the more clearly heard in Beijing. Tiếp tục đọc “Sea Change Awaits Trump in Thailand”

Việt Nam phản đối quy chế nghỉ đánh bắt cá của Trung Quốc ở Biển Đông

VE – Thứ ba, 28/2/2017 | 18:18 GMT+7

Hà Nội khẳng định quy chế mới về nghỉ đánh bắt cá trên biển của Trung Quốc xâm phạm nghiêm trọng chủ quyền của Việt Nam và vi phạm luật pháp quốc tế.

viet-nam-phan-doi-quy-che-nghi-danh-bat-ca-cua-trung-quoc-o-bien-dong

Người phát ngôn Bộ Ngoại giao Việt Nam Lê Hải Bình. Ảnh: Quý Đoàn

Bộ Nông nghiệp Trung Quốc ngày 27/2 đơn phương thông báo lệnh cấm đánh bắt cá ở Biển Đông từ 12h ngày 1/5 đến 12h ngày 16/8. Phạm vi cấm đánh bắt cá do Trung Quốc đơn phương vạch ra trên Biển Đông là từ 12 độ vĩ Bắc đến Vịnh Bắc Bộ và “giao tuyến hải vực Mân Áo”, tức vùng biển từ Phúc Kiến đến Quảng Đông, tọa độ từ 117º31’37.40″E,23º09’42.60″N đến 120º50’43″E,21º54’15″N). Lệnh cấm này cũng được áp dụng ở Vịnh Bắc Bộ, vùng biển Bột Hải, Hoàng Hải và Đông Hải.

Tiếp tục đọc “Việt Nam phản đối quy chế nghỉ đánh bắt cá của Trung Quốc ở Biển Đông”

US, South Korea and Japan discuss sanctions on Pyongyang

WASHINGTON: Senior US, South Korean and Japanese officials met on Monday (Feb 27) to discuss how better to enforce international sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes. The Washington talks came shortly after United Nations experts warned that Pyongyang has been flouting existing sanctions, and just as China’s top diplomat held talks at the White House.

US special representative for North Korea policy Joseph Yun met senior Japanese diplomat Kenji Kanasugi and South Korea’s special representative Kim Hong-kyun at the State Department.

In a statement, they condemned the North’s “flagrant disregard for multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibiting its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.” Tiếp tục đọc “US, South Korea and Japan discuss sanctions on Pyongyang”