PODCAST – Asia Stream: The Philippine Election — Dynasty and Disinformation

nikkeiNearly 50 years after Ferdinand Marcos Sr. declared brutal martial law, the Philippines is poised to elect his son. Has history been forgotten?

Nikkei staff writersMay 7, 2022 03:26 JST

NEW YORK — Welcome to Nikkei Asia’s podcast: Asia Stream.

Every week, Asia Stream tracks and analyzes the Indo-Pacific with a mix of expert interviews and original reporting by our correspondents from across the globe.

New episodes are recorded biweekly and available on Apple PodcastsSpotify and all other major platforms, and on our YouTube channel.

This week, we focus on one of Asia’s most dynamic but flawed democracies: the Philippines. With the election just days away, we get under the hood of the electoral system and investigate the powerful role that dynasties play in the country, with a special focus on Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the front-runner on the cusp of taking power. We then take into account that other essential, if dangerous, tenet of modern Philippine democracy: disinformation, and how it is being used to gain support among the country’s most vulnerable populations.

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The Xinjiang Police Files Should Prompt Action Against Uyghur Genocide

Olivia Enos , Contributor

I write about international human rights and national security.Follow

May 31, 2022,10:54am EDT Forbe

Listen to article 4 minutes

20180523125453301_653121197205
Photo of Hawagul Tewekkul, a 46-year-old Uyghur preliminarily sentenced to time in a political … [+] VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION’S XINJIANG POLICE FILES

Looking through the photos of the 2,884 inmates in the Xinjiang Police Files is not for the faint of heart. You scroll – as you would on Instagram – past face after face of a people unjustly detained by the Chinese government for no other reason than that they are Uyghur.

The first thing I noticed in the photos were their eyes. Some look bewildered, others determined, others tear-filled, others entirely blank.

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Ukraine: ‘Cycle of death, destruction’ must stop, UN chief tells Security Council

UN.org

The principal of a school in Chernihiv, Ukraine, surveys the damage caused during an aerial bombardment.

© UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson VII Photo

The principal of a school in Chernihiv, Ukraine, surveys the damage caused during an aerial bombardment.

5 May 2022

Peace and Security

Briefing the Security Council on his shuttle diplomacy last week in Russia and Ukraine, Secretary-General António Guterres declared that he “did not mince words” during meetings with Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy, on the need to end the brutal conflict.

“I said the same thing in Moscow as I did in Kyiv…Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its territorial integrity and of the Charter of the United Nations,” he told the Ambassadors.    

“It must end for the sake of the people of Ukraine, Russia, and the entire world…the cycle of death, destruction, dislocation and disruption must stop.” 

The UN chief said he had gone into an active war zone in Ukraine, after first travelling to Moscow, without much prospect of any ceasefire – as the east of the country continues to face “a full-scale ongoing attack”.

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A brief lesson on Roe v. Wade

Washingtonpost.com

By Valerie Strauss

A crowd gathers outside the Supreme Court early on May 3 after a draft opinion was leaked, appearing to show that a majority of justices were ready to overturn the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy, is in danger of being struck down by the conservative majority, according to news reports published Monday night.

According to this Washington Post article, a draft opinion published by Politico said that a majority of justices are ready to reverse the ruling — though until a decision has been formally announced, any vote that has been taken can be reconsidered. In any case, the leak itself was big news — an unprecedented breach of court protocol in modern times.

Supreme Court is ready to strike down Roe v. Wade, leaked draft shows

The following background on the case comes from the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia with a congressional charter to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis:

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Russian troops use rape as ‘an instrument of war’ in Ukraine, rights groups allege

By Tara John, Oleksandra Ochman and Sandi Sidhu, CNN

Updated 0420 GMT (1220 HKT) April 22, 2022

Karina Yershova, right, is pictured with her grandmother in an undated photograph provided by the family.

Karina Yershova, right, is pictured with her grandmother in an undated photograph provided by the family.

Lviv, Ukraine (CNN)When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began closing in on its capital, Kyiv, Andrii Dereko begged his 22-year-old stepdaughter Karina Yershova to leave the suburb where she lived.

But Yershova insisted she wanted to remain in Bucha, telling him: “Don’t talk nonsense, everything will be fine — there will be no war,” he said.

With her tattoos and long brown hair, Yershova stood out in a crowd, her stepfather said, adding that despite living with rheumatoid arthritis, she had a fiercely independent spirit: “She herself decided how to live.”

Yershova worked at a sushi restaurant in Bucha, and hoped to earn her university degree in the future, Dereko said: “She wanted to develop herself.”

Unclaimed and unidentified: Bucha empties its mass graves

Unclaimed and unidentified: Bucha empties its mass graves 03:24

As Russian soldiers surrounded Bucha in early March, Yershova hid in an apartment with two other friends. On one of the last occasions Dereko and his wife, Olena, heard from Yershova, she told them she had left the apartment to get food from a nearby supermarket.

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US State Department: 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR

 APRIL 12, 2022

The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – the Human Rights Reports – cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements. The U.S. Department of State submits reports on all countries receiving assistance and all United Nations member states to the U.S. Congress in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.

TRANSLATIONSShare

IN THIS SECTION /

OVERVIEW AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Preface

For nearly five decades, the United States has issued the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which strive to provide a factual and objective record on the status of human rights worldwide – in 2021, covering 198 countries and territories.  The information contained in these reports could not be more vital or urgent given ongoing human rights abuses and violations in many countries, continued democratic backsliding on several continents, and creeping authoritarianism that threatens both human rights and democracy – most notably, at present, with Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

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Russia’s Brutality in Ukraine Has Roots in Earlier Conflicts

Its experience in a string of wars led to the conclusion that attacking civilian populations was not only acceptable but militarily sound.

nytimes.com

Ukrainian emergency workers at a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol last week.
Ukrainian emergency workers at a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol last week.Credit…Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
Max Fisher

By Max Fisher

Published March 18, 2022Updated March 22, 2022

As Russian artillery and rockets land on Ukrainian hospitals and apartment blocksdevastating residential districts with no military value, the world is watching with horror what is, for Russia, an increasingly standard practice.

Its forces conducted similar attacks in Syria, bombing hospitals and other civilian structures as part of Russia’s intervention to prop up that country’s government.

Moscow went even further in Chechnya, a border region that had sought independence in the Soviet Union’s 1991 breakup. During two formative wars there, Russia’s artillery and air forces turned city blocks to rubble and its ground troops massacred civilians in what was widely seen as a deliberate campaign to terrorize the population into submission.

Now, Vladimir V. Putin, whose rise to Russia’s presidency paralleled and was in some ways cemented by the Chechen wars, appears to be deploying a similar playbook in Ukraine, albeit so far only by increments.

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Airline apologizes for tweet poking fun at Thailand’s King

An April Fool’s tweet referenced the apparently volatile relationship between King Vajiralongkorn and his consort Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi.

By Sebastian Strangio

thediplomat – April 04, 2022

Airline Apologizes for Tweet Poking Fun at Thailand’s King
A VietJet Air Airbus A320(SL) departs from Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, on September 18, 2017.Credit: Flickr/Alec Wilson

The low-cost carrier Thai VietJet Air has been forced to make a public apology after an April Fool’s tweet prompted a flood of criticism in Thailand, one of its major markets, for making fun of Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn. The post described the creation of a fake new route between the city of Nan in northern Thailand and Munich, Germany, where the king has for many years spent considerable amounts of time.

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The Ukraine Crisis Threatens a Sustainable Food Future

WRI.org

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already driven millions of people from their homes and left many without water, power and food. As hostilities continue, the humanitarian and economic consequences will expand far beyond the region, putting potentially millions of people around the world at risk of hunger.  

And these aren’t just short-term threats. The decisions that farmers and policymakers make over the next few weeks and months will have long-term consequences for the future of the world’s food systems. The right responses can keep the world on track for a sustainable food future. The wrong ones will worsen food insecurity and fuel climate change.

Ukrainian refugees at the Poland border.
Ukrainian refugees escape to the border town of Medyka, Poland. Millions of Ukrainian residents have fled their homes in recent weeks, due to the Russian invasion. Photo by Damian Pankowiec/Shutterstock

Emerging Food Implications of the Ukraine Crisis

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Horror at ‘mass killings’ in Ukraine as men slaughtered with bodies littering streets

CNN

As Russian forces withdraw from the areas around the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, some of the horrors of what they have done are being revealed with bodies being discovered littering the streets of towns

A Ukrainian soldier walks past the body of a civilian, who according to residents was killed by Russian army soldiers, as it lies on the street, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha

A Ukrainian soldier walks past the body of a civilian, who according to residents was killed by Russian army soldiers, as it lies on the street in Bucha (Image: REUTERS)

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Is it time to call Putin’s war in Ukraine genocide?

In international law, genocide has nothing explicitly to do with the enormity of criminal acts but, rather, of criminal intent.

By Philip Gourevitch

newyorker – March 13, 2022

People gather around two graves covered in flowers and two large crosses.
The larger reality is that the world has never before been confronted by a genocidal war waged by a man brandishing nuclear weapons.P hotograph by Dan Kitwood / Getty

“We have to call this what it is,” Volodymyr Zelensky said, late last month, a few days after Vladimir Putin had ordered the invasion and conquest of Ukraine. “Russia’s criminal actions against Ukraine show signs of genocide.” President Zelensky, who lost family members during the Holocaust, and who also happens to have a law degree, sounded suitably cautious about invoking genocide, and he called for the International Criminal Court in The Hague to send war-crimes investigators as a first step. But such investigations take years, and rarely result in convictions. (Since the I.C.C. was established in 1998, it has indicted only Africans; and Russia, like the United States, refuses its jurisdiction.) The only court that Zelensky can make his case in for now is the court of global public opinion, where his instincts, drawing on deep wells of courage and conviction, have been unerring. And by the end of the invasion’s second week—with Putin’s indiscriminate bombardment of civilian targets intensifying, and the death toll mounting rapidly; with more than two and a half million Ukrainians having fled the country, and millions more under relentless attack in besieged cities and towns; and with no end in sight—Zelensky no longer deferred to outside experts to describe what Ukrainians face in the most absolute terms. “I will appeal directly to the nations of the world if the leaders of the world do not make every effort to stop this war,” he said in a video message on Tuesday. He paused, and looking directly into the camera, added, “This genocide.”

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International law: Crimes against humanity – Luật quốc tế: Hình tội chống loài người

Crimes Against Humanity

Definition

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 7

Crimes Against Humanity

  1. For the purpose of this Statute, ‘crime against humanity’ means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
    1. Murder;
    2. Extermination;
    3. Enslavement;
    4. Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
    5. Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
    6. Torture;
    7. Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
    8. Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
    9. Enforced disappearance of persons;
    10. The crime of apartheid;
    11. Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
  2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:
    1. ‘Attack directed against any civilian population’ means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;

Nguồn Crimes Against Humanity>>

Hình tội chống loài người

Định nghĩa

Đạo luật Rome về Tòa án Hình sự Quốc tế

Điều 7 

Hình tội chống loài người

  1. Cho mục đích của Đạo luật Rome về Tòa án Hình sự Quốc tế, “tội chống loài người” nghĩa là bất kỳ hành vi nào sau đây khi được thực hiện như một phần của cuộc tấn công trên diện rộng hoặc tấn công có hệ thống, với ý thức về cuộc tấn công, nhằm vào bất kỳ nhóm dân thường nào: 
    1. Giết người;
    2. Tiêu diệt;
    3. Nô lệ hóa;
    4. Trục xuất hoặc cưỡng chế chuyển nhóm dân;
    5. Bỏ tù hoặc tước nghiêm trọng  quyền tự do thể chất vi phạm các quy tắc cơ bản của luật quốc tế;
    6. Tra tấn;
    7. Hiếp dâm, nô lệ tình dục, cưỡng bức mại dâm, cưỡng bức mang thai, cưỡng bức triệt sản, hoặc bất kỳ hình thức bạo lực tình dục nào khác có mức nghiêm trọng tương đương;
    8. Bách hại bất kỳ nhóm nào hoặc tập thể nào có thể nhận dạng về chính trị, chủng tộc, quốc gia, dân tộc, văn hóa, tôn giáo, giới tính như được định nghĩa trong đoạn 3, hoặc với các lý do khác được  công nhận trên thế giới là bị cấm theo luật quốc tế, trong khi thực hiện bất kỳ hành vi nào được nêu trong đoạn này hoặc bất kỳ hình tội  nào thuộc thẩm quyền của Tòa án này;
    9. Cưỡng chế mất tích người;
    10. Tội phân biệt chủng tộc;
    11. Các hành vi tương tự vô nhân đạo khác  cố ý gây ra đau đớn lớn, hoặc làm tổn thương nghiêm trọng đến cơ thể hoặc sức khỏe tinh thần hoặc thể chất.
  2. Cho mục đích của đoạn 1:
    1. ‘Tấn công nhằm vào bất kỳ nhóm dân thường nào’ nghĩa là một quá trình ứng xử  thực hiện nhiều  hành động  được đề cập trong đoạn 1 chống lại bất kỳ nhóm dân thường nào,  thể theo hoặc đẩy mạnh chính sách của Nhà nước hoặc của một tổ chức nhằm thực hiện cuộc tấn công đó;
(Phạm Thu Hương dịch)



 mmmmmmmmmm

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