Asia
Shehbaz Sharif sworn in as Pakistan’s prime minister after contentious vote
Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in as Pakistan’s new prime minister on Monday after being elected a day earlier in a raucous parliamentary session.
He held the same position from April 2022 to August 2023, replacing archrival Imran Khan who was kicked out of the job after a no-confidence vote. Shehbaz is the younger brother of three-time premier Nawaz Sharif.
His appointment is controversial because of parliamentary elections last month that his opponents claimed were rigged in his favor.
Read: Lawmakers elect Shehbaz Sharif as Pakistan's new premier amid protests in parliament
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, the PTI, insists it did better in the poll but that electoral theft and other irregularities deprived it of a parliamentary majority.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, the PML-N, didn’t win enough seats to form a government but went into coalition with others to get a majority, clearing his path to a second premiership.
He secured 201 votes in parliament to become prime minister, defeating the PTI-backed candidate Omar Ayub, who got 92 votes.
Monday’s swearing-in ceremony was held in the capital, Islamabad. President Arif administered the oath of office.
Read: Heavy winter rains in Pakistan kill at least 29 as buildings collapse and landslides block roads
Sharif pledged to perform his duties and functions with honesty and loyalty and always for the country's independence, “integrity, stability, and for the sake of unity.”
But stability and unity are in short supply in Pakistani politics, and Sharif has a tough task of bringing lawmakers together to steer the country through challenging times.
The first two sessions of parliament have been chaotic and noisy, with the opposition shouting and jeering at the new government because of their election grievances.
Sharif is the 24th prime minister in Pakistan’s 77-year history.
Read more: Pakistan swears in new parliament amid chaotic scenes, as Imran Khan's party protests vote count
The US and South Korea begin large military drills to boost readiness against North's threats
South Korea and the United States began large annual military exercises Monday to bolster their readiness against North Korean nuclear threats after the North raised animosities with an extension of missile tests and belligerent rhetoric earlier this year.
The South Korean and U.S. forces began a computer-simulated command post training called the Freedom Shield exercise and a variety of field exercises for an 11-day run, the South Korean Defense Ministry said.
North Korea had no immediate response to the major annual drills it regards as a rehearsal for invasion. The North has staged provocative weapons tests in the past in reaction to its adversaries' joint drills.
South Korea’s military said last week that it would conduct 48 field exercises with the U.S. forces this spring, twice the number conducted last year, and that they would involve live-firing, bombing, air assault and missile interception drills.
Since early 2022, North Korea has conducted more than 100 rounds of missile tests to modernize its arsenal as talks with the United States and South Korea have been stalled for an extended period. In response, the United States and South Korea have expanded their training exercises and increased the deployment of powerful U.S military assets such as aircraft carriers and long-range nuclear-capable bombers.
This year, North Korea carried out six rounds of missile tests and barrage of artillery firing drills. Its leader Kim Jong Un also said North Korea would scrap its long-standing goal of peaceful unification with South Korea and take a more aggressive military posture along the disputed sea boundary with South Korea. He also vowed to “annihilate” South Korea and the United States if provoked, a threat that he had previously issued.
The North Korean steps raised worries that it might make provocations along the tense Korean sea and land borders. But experts say the prospect for a full-blown attack by North Korea is dim as the North knows its military is outmatched by U.S. and South Korean forces.
North Korea’s moves to raise tensions are likely because its rivals are holding elections this year – the U.S. presidential election in November and South Korea's parliament election in April. North Korea believes an advanced nuclear arsenal will increase its leverage in future diplomacy and it can win concessions like the easing of international sanctions, experts say.
China and Myanmar likely to be high on the agenda when Southeast Asian leaders meet in Australia
An increasingly assertive China and a humanitarian crisis in Myanmar are likely to be high on the agenda when Southeast Asian leaders meet in Australia for a rare summit this week.
The ASEAN-Australia Special Summit that starts in Melbourne on Monday marks 50 years since Australia became the first official partner of the Asian bloc.
Leaders of nine of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations are expected to attend the three-day summit, with Myanmar excluded from political representation over its failure to stem violence in that country since a military junta seized control in 2021. East Timor’s leader has been invited as an official ASEAN observer and Australian Prime Anthony Albanese invited his New Zealand counterpart to Melbourne to meet regional leaders.
“Australia sees ASEAN at the center of a stable, peaceful and prosperous region,” Albanese said in a statement on Friday.
“Strengthening our relationship ensures our shared future prosperity and security,” he added.
Australia has hosted ASEAN leaders once before in Sydney in 2018. The leaders issued a statement with the host country then that called for a code of conduct covering the contested waters of the South China Sea, where China has become increasingly assertive over its competing territorial claims with a number of ASEAN countries.
Australia and the Philippines, an ASEAN member, conducted joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea for the first time in November last year.
Also in November, Australia proposed to ASEAN members that they declare in a joint statement at the end of the Melbourne summit their support for the 2016 arbitration ruling in The Hague in favor of the Philippines that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea, Australian Broadcasting Corp said in December. China has rejected that ruling.
Other ASEAN countries with territorial claims in conflict with China are Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.
China's increasingly assertive posture in the South China Sea and violence in Myanmar topped a meeting of ASEAN diplomats in January in Laos, the group's poorest nation, which has taken over the bloc's rotating leadership this year.
International Crisis Group's Asia program deputy director Huong Le Thu, who is attending the summit in Australia, said ASEAN has always been divided over how to approach China, with each member nation maintaining a unique bilateral relationship with the economic giant.
“I don’t see the commonality of one approach being feasible. They are working out the best way to manage this power asymmetry that they have with China,” Le Thu said.
The humanitarian crisis in Myanmar that hangs over the summit challenges ASEAN’s credibility as an organization, she said.
“It poses the question for its existence in the first place: why the countries’ governments in the region get together and what is the purpose of this intergovernmental institution if it cannot act on the internal crisis that effects its own organization and the region?” Le Thu said.
Around 200 protesters, mostly from the Myanmar diaspora, demonstrated outside the summit on Monday morning demanding the restoration of democracy in Myanmar and that ASEAN not engage with the country’s military leaders.
Australia, as the summit host, is focused on maritime cooperation, economic ties, climate change and clean energy.
Melissa Conley Tyler, executive director of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defense Dialogue think tank, expects leaders will focus on what they share in common rather than their differences on issues such as China and Myanmar.
“The focus is very much going to be on how do Australia and the ASEAN countries work together to create a region where we want to live?” said Conley Tyler, who is attending the summit.
“Myanmar is a continuing issue, but I’m not sure it’ll be a focus. I feel the focus will be all positive, very future-oriented, talking about what we can do together and building that sense of excitement and momentum,” she added.
ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and they have a combined population of more than 650 million and GDP of more than $3 trillion.
Heavy winter rains in Pakistan kill at least 29 as buildings collapse and landslides block roads
Pakistani authorities said Sunday at least 29 people died and 50 others injured due to heavy rains that swept across the country in the past 48 hours, causing several houses to collapse and landslides to block roads, particularly in the northwest.
This comes as Pakistan is also witnessing severe snowfall.
About 23 rain-related deaths were reported in various areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan since Thursday night, the provincial disaster management authority said in a statement.
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Five people died in the southwestern Baluchistan province after the coastal town of Gwadar got flooded, forcing authorities to use boats to evacuate people.
Casualties and damages were also reported in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the National Disaster Management Authority said in a separate statement.
Emergency relief was being provided to people in affected areas and heavy machinery used to remove debris blocking highways, the agency added.
The country's Karakoram Highway which links Pakistan with China is still blocked in some places due to landslides, according to the spokesman for the northern Gilgit Baltistan region, Faizullah Faraq.
Authorities advised tourists against traveling to the scenic north due to weather conditions. Last week, several visitors were stranded there because of the heavy rains.
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This year, Pakistan is witnessing an unusual delay in winter rains, starting in February instead of November.
Monsoon and winter rains cause damage in Pakistan every year.
In 2022, climate-induced unusual monsoon rains and flooding devastated most of the areas in impoverished Pakistan, killing more than 1,739 people, affecting around 33 million people and displacing nearly 8 million. The rains and floods in 2022 also caused billions of dollars of damages to the country's economy and some of the areas people who lost their homes are still living in makeshift homes.
Pakistan swears in new parliament amid chaotic scenes, as Imran Khan's party protests vote count
Pakistan's National Assembly swore in newly elected members on Thursday in a chaotic scene, as allies of jailed former Premier Imran Khan protested what they claim was a rigged election.
Lawmakers from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party repeatedly chanted "Vote-thief!” as Shehbaz Sharif, who's expected to form the government, entered the lower house of parliament with his brother Nawaz Sharif. Both men are former premiers.
Outgoing National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf administered the oath to incoming legislators at noon.
The house echoed with chants of “Long Live Sharif!” when the brothers signed the register after taking their oaths of office. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the young chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party and a key Sharif ally, was met with similar chants.
The new government will face challenges including a surge in militant attacks and shortages of energy; as well as an ailing economy that will force Pakistan to seek another bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Lawmakers from Khan's PTI told reporters that they will continue their campaign against the rigging in the elections in and outside the parliament.
Pakistan’s Imran Khan and his wife appear in court and plead not guilty in another graft case
“Yes, the election has been rigged,” said Gohar Ali Khan, the current head of PTI.
PTI has called for nationwide rallies on Saturday. The party claims it results were changed in dozens of constituencies to prevent it from winning a majority, a charge the Election Commission of Pakistan denies.
After the Feb. 8 elections, observers from the Commonwealth praised election officials for holding the vote despite multiple militant attacks, but the U.S. State Department said that the vote was held under restrictions of freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. The European Union also criticized the inability of some political actors to contest the elections. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has fired back at such criticism, saying the vote was held in a free, fair and transparent manner.
None of the foreign observers described widespread vote-stealing.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, and Pakistan People’s Party of former President Asif Ali Zardari, emerged from the vote as the largest presence in the 336-seat National Assembly, or lower house of the parliament.
Under a power-sharing formula, Sharif's party will support Zardari in next month's presidential elections. Outgoing President Arif Alvi is an ally of Khan and was a senior member of PTI before becoming president.
Khan is currently serving prison terms in multiple cases and has been barred from seeking or holding office. He has been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 10, 14 and 7 years. Khan is appealing all the convictions. He still faces some 170 legal cases on charges ranging from corruption to inciting violence and terrorism.
Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls
On Wednesday, the PTI wrote a letter to the International Monetary Fund, urging it to link any talks with Islamabad to an audit of the country’s recent election, which his party alleges was rigged. The latest development came days before the IMF releases a key installment of a bailout loan to Pakistan.
Khan's move had drawn widespread criticism from his rivals, including Sharif, said Khan wanted to harm the country's economy. Sharif who replaced Khan after his ouster through a no-confidence vote in April 2022 had struggled hard to avoid a default on foreign payments last summer when the IMF approved the much-awaited $3 billion.
Sharif has said he wants a new bailout from the IMF after March when last year's IMF bailout expires.
Japan had the fewest babies it has ever recorded last year. Marriages dropped steeply, too
The number of babies born in Japan last year fell for an eighth straight year to a new low, government data showed Tuesday, and a top official said it was critical for the country to reverse the trend in the coming half-dozen years.
The 758,631 babies born in Japan in 2023 were a 5.1% decline from the previous year, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry. It was the lowest number of births since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899.
The number of marriages fell by 5.9% to 489,281 couples, falling below a half-million for the first time in 90 years — one of the key reasons for the declining births. Out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan because of family values based on a paternalistic tradition.
Surveys show that many younger Japanese balk at marrying or having families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living that rises at a faster pace than salaries and corporate cultures that are not compatible with having both parents work. Crying babies and children playing outside are increasingly considered a nuisance, and many young parents say they often feel isolated.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Tuesday that the ongoing declining birth rate is at "critical state."
"The period over the next six years or so until 2030s, when the younger population will start declining rapidly, will be the last chance we may be able to reverse the trend," he said. "There is no time to waste."
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the low births "the biggest crisis Japan faces," and put forward a package of measures that have included more support and subsidies mostly for childbirth, children and their families.
But experts say they doubt whether the government's efforts will be effective because so far they have largely focused on people who already are married or already are planning to have children, while not adequately addressing a growing population of young people who are reluctant to go that far.
The number of births has been falling since 50 years ago, when it peaked at about 2.1 million. The decline to an annual number below 760,000 has happened faster than earlier projections predicting that would happen by 2035.
Japan's population of more than 125 million is projected to fall by about 30% to 87 million by 2070, with four out of every 10 people at age 65 or older. A shrinking and aging population has big implications for the economy and for national security as the country seeks to fortify its military to counter China's increasingly assertive territorial ambitions.
Pakistan’s Imran Khan and his wife appear in court and plead not guilty in another graft case
Pakistan's imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife appeared in a court near Islamabad on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty in a graft case alleging they accepted the gift of land from a real estate tycoon in exchange for large sums of laundered money, officials said.
The case is the second to indict Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi over acts of corruption allegedly committed while the former cricket star turned Islamist politician was in office.
Prosecutors accuse the couple of using their family’s charity to set up a university on land gifted to them by the tycoon, Malik Riaz. In turn, the businessman was allegedly given 190 million British pounds ($240 million) in laundered money that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities.
Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls
Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, is currently serving multiple prison terms and has some 170 legal cases pending against him on charges ranging from corruption to inciting people to violence and terrorism. The couple has also been convicted earlier in a graft case on charges of selling state gifts while in office.
Khan has denied wrongdoing and has insisted since his arrest last year that all the charges against him are a plot by his rivals to keep him from returning to office.
He was barred from running in the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in which his rivals from the Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, emerged as the largest in the National Assembly or lower house of the parliament. Khan's rival, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is now on track to form a coalition government when the parliament meets for its inaugural session on Friday.
On Tuesday, Khan was brought before the judge at the high security court set up inside the Adiala Prison, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi just outside Islamabad, where he is serving his prison terms concurrently.
Bibi, who is imprisoned at the couple's home in Islamabad, was brought to the court in a security convoy. The couple pleaded not guilty after the latest charge was read to them and the judge adjourned the proceedings till next month, Khan's legal team said.
Separately, Khan and Bibi have also been sentenced to seven years in prison each on charges that their 2018 wedding violated marriage laws, allegedly because insufficient time had lapsed between Bibi's previous divorce and their union.
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Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party condemned Tuesday's proceedings as “one sided” and complained because Khan's legal team has had limited access to him and because the media have been barred from covering the trial.
Khan has so far been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and seven years respectively. Under Pakistani law, he is to serve the terms concurrently — meaning, the length of the longest of the sentences.
Khan is appealing all the convictions.
Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls
More than two-thirds of the U.N. Security Council’s members demanded Monday that the Taliban rescind all policies and decrees oppressing and discriminating against women and girls, including banning girls education above the sixth grade and women’s right to work and move freely.
A statement by 11 of the 15 council members condemned the Taliban’s repression of women and girls since they took power in August 2021, and again insisted on their equal participation in public, political, economic, cultural and social life -- especially at all decision-making levels seeking to advance international engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.
Guyana’s U.N. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett read the statement, surrounding by ambassadors of the 10 other countries, before a closed council meeting on U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ conference with more than 25 envoys to Afghanistan on Feb. 18-19 in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Afghan civil society representatives, including women, participated in the Doha meeting, which the council members welcomed. The Taliban refused to attend, its Foreign Ministry saying in a statement that its participation would be “beneficial” only if it was the sole and official representative for the country at the talks.
While the Taliban did not attend the meetings, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo did meet with Taliban officials based in Doha, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. DiCarlo also briefed council members at Monday’s closed meeting.
The Taliban have not been recognized by any country, and the U.N. envoy for Afghanistan last year warned the de facto rulers that international recognition as the country’s legitimate government will remain “nearly impossible” unless they lift the restrictions on women.
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The 11 council nations supporting the statement -- Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States – underscored that there can only be sustainable peace in Afghanistan if its political process is inclusive and the human rights of all Afghans are respected including women and girls.
Four Security Council nations didn’t sign on to the statement – Russia, China, Mozambique and Algeria.
The Taliban refused to attend the Doha meeting. A Foreign Ministry statement said participation would only be beneficial if the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban call their administration, are the sole and official representative for the country at the talks.
Secretary-General Guterres told reporters in Doha that among participants — also including representatives of the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — there was “total consensus” on requirements for Afghanistan to be integrated into the international community.
Read: UN is seeking to verify that Afghanistan's Taliban are letting girls study at religious schools
To reach this “endgame,” he said, Afghanistan must not be “the hotbed of terrorist activities that impact other countries,” its institutions must include diverse groups including Uzbeks, Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras, and human rights must be respected especially the rights of women and girls.
Guterres said to a certain extent there is currently “a kind of situation of the chicken and the egg.”
“On one hand, Afghanistan remains with a government that is not recognized internationally and, in many aspects, not integrated in the global institutions and in the global economy,” he said. “And on the other hand, there is in the international community a perception that inclusivity has not improved; that the situation of women and girls and human rights in general has in fact deteriorated in recent times.”
The secretary-general said one objective of the meeting with the envoys was “to overcome this deadlock” and develop a roadmap in which the international community’s concerns and the Taliban’s concerns are “taken into account simultaneously.”
A Security Council resolution asked Guterres to appoint a U.N. envoy after consultations with all parties, member states, the Taliban and others.
Guterres said the participants decided he should initiate consultations “to see if there are conditions to create a U.N. envoy that might be able not only to have a coordinating role in relation to the engagements that are taking place but that can also work effectively with the de facto authorities of Afghanistan.”
“I will initiate immediately those consultations,” the U.N. chief said.
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Former Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif's daughter and close aide takes over top provincial post
The eldest daughter and close aide of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday became the country’s first-ever female chief minister in eastern Punjab province.
Mariam Nawaz, 50, was elected chief minister in a 220-0 vote in her favor, beating out rival for the post, Rana Aftab, who was nominated by the Sunni Ittehad Council, an ally of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Opposition lawmakers supporting Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in 2022, boycotted the session of the 371-member Punjab Assembly.
Nawaz thanked God in televised remarks and promised she would equally serve those who voted for her and those who opposed her. “The doors of my heart and office will remain open for the opposition as well,” she said.
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Nawaz's appointment was largely expected following the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in which her father's Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly or lower house of the parliament and in the Punjab Assembly.
The PML-N, which was initially trailing candidates representing Khan's supporters — the former cricket player turned Islamist politician was barred from running — emerged last Friday as the largest single winner in the election after receiving 24 additional seats — 20 from out of the 60 seats reserved for women, as well as four seats out of 10 reserved for minorities. Nine independent members have also joined the PML-N.
The PML-N is now heading into a coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, with Nawaz's uncle, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on a firm path to becoming the next prime minister, his second term in office.
The Sharifs are one of the top two families that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades. Nawaz Sharif, who served three times as a premier, was ousted from power in 2017 in a graft case. Khan, who replaced Sharif in 2018, granted him permission to travel to London for medical treatment following a court order.
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Sharif came back to Pakistan from self-imposed exile abroad and returned to politics ahead of the elections. In her father's absence, Nawaz had led political campaigns and taken over his work.
However, many critics say Nawaz's rise is yet another case of nepotism. Earlier, one of Shehbaz Sharif's sons, Hamza Shehbaz, had also served as the chief minister in Punjab.
Many in Myanmar consider fleeing to Thailand to escape conscription into an army they despise
Thwel, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, saw very few options left to her after Myanmar’s military announced it is implementing conscription to fill its ranks.
“As a person living in this country, I only have two options: to go abroad illegally or die here,” Thwel told The Associated Press by phone while traveling to a border area to try crossing into Thailand with a small group of like-minded people.
Some observers believe a mass exodus of young talent is taking place and could become a social problem, with their exit heightening the instability that followed the military takeover that now amounts to a civil war.
Thwel, whose home in Myanmar’s southern Mon state is the scene of occasional combat between the army and resistance forces, spoke on condition she be called by only one name as protection from the military authorities. Like many professionals, she joined the Civil Disobedience Movement that was formed to oppose military rule after the army’s 2021 seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Since then, the army's manpower has been stretched thin by increasing pressure from surprisingly durable pro-democracy resistance forces and ethnic minority armed organizations,
Over the past four months, opposition groups scored significant victories and seized strategically important territory in northern Shan state where Myanmar borders China, and in Rakhine state in the west.
On Feb. 10, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, chair of Myanmar’s ruling military council, ordered the 2010 conscription law be activated to replenish the ranks that have been depleted by the struggle to quash a nationwide pro-democracy insurgency. All healthy men ages 18-35 and women 18-27 are required to register for two years of military service.
Evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine.
Of Myanmar's 56 million people, about 14 million — 6.3 million men and 7.7 million women — are eligible for military service, according to Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government. The government will draft 60,000 people a year, with an initial batch of 5,000 to be called up soon after the traditional Thingyan New Year celebration in mid-April, he said.
After an uproar over the initial announcement, Zaw Min Tun said there is no plan to call women into military service yet — meaning schoolteacher Thwel might actually be in the clear for the time being.
But many people are actively looking for ways to escape.
The street in front of Thailand’s embassy in Yangon has been filled with visa applicants queued up to get numbered appointment tickets. Overwhelmed, the embassy announced it would accept only 400 visa appointments per day, and they must be made online. According to the Thai Foreign Ministry, some 7,000 Myanmar nationals have applied for visas, Thailand’s Bangkok Post newspaper reported Thursday.
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Each day at the state passport office in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, 4,000-5000 people were lining up to get one of the 200-250 daily appointment tickets. Two women died and one was injured after they fell into a ditch in a pre-dawn rush to get a coveted early place in line.
A 32-year-old news translator from Yangon said he made a snap decision to leave the country after the conscription announcement, and flew to Thailand a few days later. Like almost all persons willing to discuss their plans, he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of the legal consequences.
He said he was very concerned because serving in the military is like entering a labyrinth with no way back out, giving the example of his uncle, who joined the army for a five-year enlistment but was not allowed to leave for more than 40 years.
A 26-year-old journalist who has been working covertly in Mandalay, said the conscription law made his situation untenable. He also spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of the legal consequences; more than 150 journalists were arrested after the army sized power, and more than one-third remain locked up, according to the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.
“I tried my best to stay inside the country in the past few years while other journalists were fleeing abroad or to areas controlled by ethnic minority armed groups," he said. "But, this time, we can’t hide anywhere. We can’t stay out of sight. There is no choice.”
He is also planning to flee to Thailand.
The Institute for Strategy and Policy, an independent think tank, said conscription could trigger a mass exodus, more widespread violations of human rights and increase corruption and extortion at all levels. It anticipates that young people close to areas where armed conflict is active could join the ethnic minority armed forces and pro-democracy resistance groups.
There were around 160,000 soldiers before the army takeover, the institute said, and there are now fewer than 100,000 due to casualties, desertions and defection.
Like schoolteacher Thwel, a 35-year old doctor from Yangon had joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. He was consequently restricted from treating patients, since activist medical workers are boycotting government hospitals, while private clinics and hospitals risk closure if they hire them. They are also blacklisted by immigration authorities, making them unable to get passports to legally leave the country.
Professionals such as medical doctors and engineers face a higher age limit for conscription — 45 for men and 35 for women — and their term of service is three years.
"For me, the announcement of the law was the impetus to make a decision to go abroad,” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety.
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The doctor said he was exploring the best ways flee abroad or to border areas controlled by the ethnic armed groups.
Ethnic resistance groups such as the Arakan Army from Rakhine state and the Shan State Progress Party have invited people to take refuge in territory they control. The Karen National Union in Kayin state in the southeast has similarly promised help.
Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, the leading political body of the pro-democracy resistance, declared that the public is not required to comply with the conscription law, urging them instead to intensify their participation in the fight against army rule.
The Yangon region branch of its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force, announced a recruitment drive and said they received about 1,000 online applications within 12 hours.
More than 1,000 working-age Myanmar nationals are believed to be crossing into Thailand every day since conscription was announced, said Moe Kyaw of the Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association-Thailand, an aid association for Myanmar migrant workers.
“It is not a good sign that human resources and intellectuals leave a country,” he said.
He echoed other aid workers in predicting that with new waves of people entering Thailand, generally illegally, there will be increased human trafficking and related crimes, and there will be friction as the new entrants compete for jobs with as many as 3 million already employed Myanmar migrant workers.