China's Offshore Military Drills Seen as 'a Show Intended For Japan'

 
China's live-fire military wargames in the East China Sea, which have resulted in massive flight disruptions in and around Shanghai, are purely a form of psychological warfare aimed at Japan, experts said.

Beijing's Ministry of Defense announced the five days of drills that began on Tuesday off the eastern seaboard opposite Japan, sparking a red alert by civil aviation authorities and a partial shutdown of some 19 airports in the region.

Among those affected were Shanghai's two international airports, which have a throughput of tens of thousands of passengers daily.

Live-fire drills are also slated for the Gulf of Tonkin, near Vietnam, and the Bohai Strait and Yellow Sea, opposite Korea, according to official media reports.

But the drills are still largely aimed at showing China's military muscle to Tokyo, Yang Liyu, professor of East Asian Studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, told RFA's Mandarin Service.

"They are showing off their military might, and I think that this is psychological warfare," Yang said.

The moves will feed into growing fears among the international community that President Xi Jinping is aiming for global superpower status, in stark contrast to previous administrations, who have pursued low-key foreign policies.

"Public opinion in the West is increasingly concerned [about Xi Jinping]," Yang said. "Only the day before yesterday, there was an article in the Washington Post saying that Xi Jinping is very hard line."

"The Western media has seen that Xi Jinping is even more formidable and difficult to deal with than [Russian president Vladimir] Putin."

Zhu Yongde, honorary professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, agreed.

"Right now it's all about dealing with Japan," Zhu said.

"There is widespread support for opposition to Japan inside China."

Japan looms so large in Chinese foreign policy
He said Japan looms so large in Beijing's foreign policy that the ruling Chinese Communist Party would make other sacrifices not to be seen as weak on Tokyo, including backing off from territorial disputes over disputed island chains in the South China Sea.

"China is getting ready to put the South China Sea dispute to one side," Zhu said.

Yang said Xi seemed very worried about showing any kind of weakness.

"Of course these military exercises are intended as a warning to Japan;they're aimed at the Japanese," he said.

"They are also a warning to the United States, that China has its own military capability and its own strategic priorities; we're not low-maintenance [any more]."

He said concern in the West has been fueled by the People's Liberation Army's growing missile capabilities.

"China's missile capability is pretty formidable," Yang said. "Its entire defense strategy depends on the Long March rocket."

Tokyo was quick to play down the significance of the drills, however.

"For any country, conducting drills in nearby seas is what they routinely do," Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters on Tuesday.

"We ourselves carry out exercises in a solid manner. We take this as China's routine exercise," he said.

"It is our understanding that this is not the kind of exercise aimed at a particular country or a particular situation."

China is increasingly at loggerheads with Japan over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu island chain, recent visits by Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni Shrine, and an ongoing war of words over Tokyo's past military aggression in East Asia.

Nanjing massacre
Beijing typically holds Germany up as an example of a country that has faced up to the atrocities of its past, while criticizing politicians in Japan who pay respects at war shrines and historians who take issue with international accounts of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

China says 300,000 people died as advancing Japanese troops rampaged through the city, while an international military tribunal in 1948 estimated that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed.

Beijing recently applied to have its historical archives on the massacre and the widespread forcing of "comfort women" into prostitution to serve the Japanese military admitted to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

Japan has acknowledged that the Nanjing massacre took place, though its historians say Beijing has inflated the figures.

Beijing's ties with Tokyo have soured over competing claims to a string of uninhabited islets, known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan, in the East China Sea.

Earlier this month, China removed an oil rig from the disputed Paracel Islands after several confrontations with Vietnamese vessels that had led to collisions, including the ramming of a Vietnamese fishing boat in May by Chinese patrol vessels, which caused it to capsize.

The dispute had lowered relations between China and Vietnam to their worst level since the two communist nations fought a brief border war in 1979.

Violent anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam following the rig deployment had left at least four people dead and the destruction of factories believed to be operated by Chinese companies, though many were Taiwanese-owned.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting rival claims from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei.

Lengthy standoff ends in tragedy

 
The last words of 6-year-old Pha Chharan were still ringing in his mother’s ears hours after the child was pronounced dead on arrival at Tbong Khmum Provincial Hospital early yesterday morning.
“Mum, please hug me and help me.”
“He did not tell me how hurt he was,” Yam Sophorn, his 31-year-old mother, said. “He kept repeating to himself for more than half an hour on the way to the hospital. Then my son died.”
The death marked the tragic end of an hours-long standoff with police on Tuesday night, when the young boy was stabbed and slashed by his mentally disturbed uncle, who was then brought down in a hail of bullets.

Chharan had gone to Kak commune’s Kanche village at about 10am on Tuesday to visit his uncle, Him Sokna, 22.He often rode his bike along the 2-kilometre road from the family home in neighbouring Bosti village to visit the man, who would give him money, his mother said. What he didn’t know was that Sokna had not been himself recently.“I was shocked when my neighbour phoned me to tell me that my son was being held prisoner and had had his hands and legs bound,” she added.Rushing to the scene, Sophorn pleaded wtih her brother-in-law to release the child.
“When I arrived there, I begged him to release my son, but he brandished knives and threatened me. He told me not to worry, that he would release him,” she said.

Hundreds of onlookers and police joined in the calls for Sokna to stand down, but to no avail.
Yem Run, Kanche village chief, yesterday described the scene.“We asked him what he wanted, but he did not tell us. He only ordered us to get away from the boy or he would kill him,” he said.
Mao Pov, police chief of Tbong Khmum, said provincial, military and Interior Ministry police tried to trick Sokna into taking sedatives.“At first, we put sleeping medicine in an energy drink, but he did not drink it. We also put it in some in food,” he said.Police then filled the house with smoke to make Sokna pass out.“After that, police came up from behind the house to help the boy. They got to him, but unfortunately he was tied by rope to a pillar in the house,” Run said.
“The man [Sokna] ran towards two police officers to stab them. Seeing him, they ran out of the house.”

Before police could devise a new strategy, Sokna began to slice at Chharan with two knives, before running at them.“The police shot him when they heard he had cut my son’s throat. Then I had no fear anymore, and I went to hug my son. I saw that his hands were tied with a krama and his legs with a rope. His legs were hacked at many times,” Sophorn said.Police chief Pov said the authorities “did not want to shoot him, but we wanted to defend ourselves when he chased us. So we shot him in the legs, shoulder and stomach until he died. We regret this”.Kanche villagers had grown increasingly wary of Sokna over the past three months, claiming he had been loved by all until he began making death threats and acting erratically in May.

Three days before the attack, Sokna had beaten his mother and tried to strangle his father, villager Om Yot, 53, said. “Everyone in the village feared him.”
His parents had since stopped sleeping in the house, his father said.
“My wife and I dared not to sleep at home for three days already, because he had choked me and beat my wife,” he said, adding that the family had sought intervention from a traditional healer many times.

“Had I known Chharan was coming, I wouldn’t have allowed him to enter the house. I deeply regret what happened. I lost my grandson and son, but I could not help when it happened.”
Grieving mother Sophorn cradled a photo of her son under the house where he was killed yesterday afternoon, shortly after his funeral was held.
“I’ll never forget my son’s last words. But, he did not cry,” she said.

City Hall says thanks to all those who cracked down

 
Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong yesterday passed out hundreds of millions of riel – purportedly provided by Prime Minister Hun Sen – to more than 2,000 police officials as a token of thanks for their work in maintaining order in the 12 months since the 2013 general elections.
Since the July 28 poll last year, the capital has been rocked by frequent demonstrations – many related to the election results and the ongoing fight for improved wages in the garment sector.
Police crackdowns have resulted in countless injuries and the deaths of at least seven civilians, some of them not even participants in the unrest.

According to City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche, however, Socheatvong praised the 2,400 officials at a gathering at the Olympic Stadium for preventing a slide into lawlessness.
“The political deadlock after the national election went on for more than a year, and caused many demonstrations and strikes, and sometimes, those strikes and demonstrations nearly caused Phnom Penh to fall into anarchy and a chaotic situation,” Socheatvong said, according to city spokesman Long Dimanche.At the gathering, Phnom Penh police chief Chhuon Sovann thanked the police for managing the year’s demonstrations – of which there were 445, he added, 80 of which were instigated by the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party – and commiserated with attendees over the abuse they suffered.

“On top of the forceful clashing with the protesters, the police forces were cursed and insulted seriously,” he said.Dimanche said that at the ceremony, attendees with the rank of deputy district chief or lower were each given 100,000 riel (about $25). Those above that rank were each given 200,000.Am Sam Ath, a legal adviser with the rights group Licadho, said that offering incentives to officials for performing their duties well was understandable.
“However, previously, the prevention of gatherings and demonstrations caused many deaths and injuries, so offering money as encouragement for that could cause confusion and criticism,” he said.

New hearings begin

 
Evidentiary hearings in the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s Case 002/02 could come hot on the heels of the August 7 verdict in Case 002/01, starting as early as “late September”, parties to the proceedings confirmed at the case’s initial hearing yesterday.
When prompted by trial chamber president Nil Nonn to “explore the possibility of commencing evidentiary hearings in late September”, national co-prosecutor Chea Leang said that her team had been waiting for the start of the case and would be available through 2015.
Nuon Chea defender Victor Koppe concurred, and new civil party lead co-lawyer Marie Guiraud said that her team could start in “September or October”. Khieu Samphan counsel Anta Guisse, however, reregistered her team’s position that the next case shouldn’t begin until lingering legal issues are resolved.

The potential time frame for opening Case 002/02 was just one of many glimpses of the upcoming trial offered by yesterday’s initial hearing.Civil parties spent a portion of the morning session outlining potential reparations projects they intend to seek. “Bolstered by the lessons” of Case 002/01, in the words of Guiraud, the team laid out proposals for both physical and mental health initiatives, vocational training for the children of forced marriages and a plan to help Vietnamese civil parties regain Cambodian citizenship lost as a result of forced deportations under the Khmer Rouge.
Parties also obliquely referenced the imminent resignation of judge Silvia Cartwright, the first public acknowledgement of her long-rumoured departure. Court legal communications officer Lars Olsen confirmed yesterday that Cartwright had “resigned, effective the 1st of September”.
On the subject of the sequence of the trial, the prosecution and defence yesterday put forth essentially opposing plans. The prosecution argued that evidence of the roles of the accused in an alleged joint criminal enterprise (JCE) should be the first order of business, followed by segments pertaining to each charge.

Koppe, however, suggested ending the case on the subject of JCE, and beginning with evidence of international and internal armed conflicts in Democratic Kampuchea, hinting at the team’s plan to argue that the Khmer Rouge faced a legitimate security threat and was riven by rogue factions.
The nature of the conflict, he said, could “fundamentally affect the arguments parties may put forth” and was furthermore “at the very heart of our case”.
Yesterday’s session ended with prolonged wrangling over witness lists, most notably over three witnesses on the Nuon Chea defence team’s list who declined to appear when summonsed in Case 002/01 – senior government officials and former Khmer Rouge cadres Heng Samrin and Chea Sim, and former justice minister Ouk Bunchhoeun.
The refusal of government officials to answer summonses has long been a source of criticism for the court, but Leang, the national prosecutor, unilaterally objected to their inclusion in Case 002/02.
International co-prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian, meanwhile, noted that he hadn’t objected to any of the defence’s witnesses.

Tornado ravages over 100 houses in Can Tho

Mr. Tran Van Tranh, the town’s chair, said the at least 56 houses collapsed, 91 houses were damaged and 40 electric poles were knocked down in the tornado.Local residents said the tornado appeared in small rain at 7.10am. When many people were about to live home for work, they heard the wind howling from afar, then swept away the roofs."My wife, I and our two children had just run to the street only several seconds before the house fell down," said Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son, a resident in Thoi Thuan hamlet.After the disaster, more than 100 officers and soldiers of the Military Region 9 and the local authorities helped people clean up the scene and rebuild damaged houses.

Six categories of Vietnamese not allowed to work for foreign employers

Illustrative image. -- Photo: DatViet

The decree, signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on July 27 and to take effect as from September 15, guides the implementation of several articles of the Labour Code on the recruitment of management of Vietnamese working for foreign organisations and individuals operating in the country.
Accordingly, the first category includes officers, soldiers and those working for the Vietnamese People’s Army and People’s Police, as well as the government information security system.
Officials and public servants as stipulated in the Law on Public Employees belong to the second category.
The third and fourth categories are those who are working in sectors relating to state secrets and their husbands or wives.
In the fifth category are all those who have been disciplined for leaking state secrets or national security, while the sixth one groups those who are subject to criminal proceedings or are carrying out their criminal sentences, as well as those who are banned from doing certain jobs under criminal laws.
The decree also makes clear that foreign organisations and individuals include diplomatic agencies, foreign consulates, representative offices of the United Nations’ agencies and organisations, regional organisations, international organisations and inter-governmental, foreign governmental and foreign non-governmental organisations. It also covers resident offices of foreign news agencies, radio and television stations, no-profit representative offices of foreign organisations operating in economics, trade, finance, banking, insurance, science-technology, culture, education, health, and legal consulting.

Vietnam, US meet over MIA search

At the meeting, Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Thanh Cung who is deputy head of Committee 1237, affirmed that the Vietnamese Government will continue to facilitate and effectively cooperate with the US in the search for remains of both sides' soldiers missing in action (MIA).He noted that Viet Nam has announced the list and opened almost all sites where Americans were believed to have gone missing during the war. In 2009 and 2011, the country allowed the US Navy's oceanographic research ship to join the search for MIA remains in the waters offshore central Viet Nam.

To date, Viet Nam has delivered 952 boxes of remains to the US, of which more than 700 sets of remains have been identified.At present, Viet Nam and the US are conducting their 116th joint field activities with seven search teams.The Deputy Defence Minister expressed his wish that the JPAC will promptly provide the Vietnamese side with information on dead and missing Vietnamese military men (about 200,000) as well as exchange experience in searching for MIA.
He added that Viet Nam wants to accelerate the joint search for fallen or missing Vietnamese soldiers as time has brought about great changes in landscape and many witnesses have passed away.
For his part, Lieut. Gen. Kelley Mc Keagne, JPAC Commander spoke highly of the effective cooperation between the two Governments in this field.
He proposed cooperation in training Vietnamese staff in forensic anthropology and scientific exchange.He asked Viet Nam to continue assisting the US's search teams when they conduct two large-scale excavations in Viet Nam in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Girl hit by plane on Florida beach dies from her injuries

 

The 9-year-old girl critically injured when an airplane struck her on a Florida beach last weekend has died, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.The girl, Oceana Irizarry, and her father, Ommy Irizarry, 36, of Georgia were struck Sunday afternoon by a plane making an emergency landing, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The father died at the scene, and the girl was rushed to a hospital.Venice Municipal Airport officials reported a plane in distress Sunday afternoon, sheriff's spokeswoman Wendy Rose said.

The pilot of a 1972 Piper Cherokee radioed that he would be unable to make it back to the airport and that he was instead going to attempt a landing on Caspersen Beach, just to the south.

The pilot, Karl Kokomoor, and his passenger, David Theen, were uninjured. They are from Englewood, Florida.Kokomoor -- the president and CEO of local engineering firm -- is "emotionally distraught and devastated," his pastor, Victor Willis, said Tuesday.

"Words cannot express the sorrow I feel," said a statement that was read by Willis.

'Never saw them'

Kokomoor said that he was losing altitude fast and had little time to make a decision. He said he aimed for an area on the water's edge that appeared to be remote.

"I never saw them," he said. "It was only after I landed and we exited the plane that I realized that there were people on the beach."The investigation into the crash is being conducted by the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board.The death investigation -- which is being conducted by the sheriff's office -- will determine if Kokomoor will face any charges, said Rose.

"I send my heartfelt apologies to the Irizarry family for my role in this tragic accident," the statement read. "I will fully cooperate with the FAA and NTSB in their investigations."

Family was celebrating wedding anniversary

On the same day he died, Ommy Irizarry posted a love message on Facebook to his wife, as they were celebrating their ninth wedding anniversary.

"Thank you for being with me through thick and thin. I love you with all my heart, mi Roma. I am very happy and can't wait to see what the next 100 have in store for us," Irizarry wrote.

According to his Facebook page, Irizarry was originally from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He was an Army sergeant first class stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

He was a platoon sergeant assigned to Fort Stewart's Warrior Transition Battalion, the Army said. He twice deployed to Iraq since joining the Army in 2002.

"This is a heart-wrenching situation, especially losing loved ones while on vacation to celebrate a family milestone," said Maj. Gen. Mike Murray, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and Stewart-Hunter. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the Irizarry family."