The United States is open to a dialogue with North Korea on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, but the onus is on Pyongyang to take “meaningful actions” toward that end and to refrain from provocative acts, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said China’s proposal that the United States and South Korea halt their annual military exercises in exchange for a suspension of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs was not a “viable deal.”

“This is apples and oranges,” he said. “What we’re doing in terms of our defense cooperation with South Korea is in no way comparable to the blatant disregard that North Korea has shown with respect to international law.”
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Rights activists and groups are welcoming a Thai government decision to drop legal cases against three rights activists who authored a report last year accusing Thai security forces of abuse and torture in restive southern Thai provinces.

In early 2016, rights lawyers Somchai Homlaor, Pornpen Khongkachonkie, and Anchana Heemmina, published a report citing 54 cases of alleged torture and mistreatment of prisoners in military custody.

Three majority Muslim Malay provinces have been the center of a 12-year insurgency that has claimed more than 6,000 lives with little progress in efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement.

Following the report’s public release, Thai Internal Security Operations Command officials filed a criminal complaint against the activists, accusing them of defamation and breaches of the Computer Crimes Act.They faced prison sentences of up to five years and fines of $2,800.

The decision to drop the charges Tuesday followed negotiations and agreement by the activists to present future evidence to the ISOC before releasing any report.

Angkhana Neelapaichit, a member of the National Human Rights Commission, said once any allegations are raised, the ISOC should take steps to investigate.

“For myself, the National Human Rights Commission [and] my mandate covering human rights defenders [I] seriously don’t agree the government should try to threaten the human rights defenders,” Angkhana told VOA.

“If ISOC [does] not agree with the report they can investigate themselves and say to the public, but for the human rights defenders the government has to respect the work of the human rights defenders,” she said.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday the decision “should be the first step toward ending government intimidation, censorship, and retaliation against human rights defenders in Thailand”.

Brad Adams, HRW Asia director, said the decision would be “quickly forgotten if the military continues to interfere with rights monitoring in Thailand’s southern border provinces”.

Defamation laws used against activists

Amnesty International’s deputy director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Josef Benedict, also welcomed the decision.

But Benedict said the case was emblematic of how criminal defamation provisions and other repressive laws have been used to target activists, human rights defenders, journalists, and other members of Thailand’s civil society “as part of a systematic crackdown on government critics”.

Thai rights lawyer, Sirikan Charoensiri, who is defending anti-government protesters, has faced harassment by authorities.Sirikan is facing a possible 15-year prison sentence on charges of treason and violating a ban on “political assembly” of five or more persons.

U.N. Human Rights Office representative Laurent Meillan added his support, saying the government should be encouraged “to take additional steps to strengthen measures to protect activists carrying out human rights reporting and monitoring”.

Thai government sources told VOA the decision by the military to drop the charges was based on an agreement of Internal Security Operations staff to consult with the rights activists over alleged breaches of rights in the southern border provinces.

Somchai Homalor, who was unavailable for comment for VOA, told local media he had agreed to submit future reports to “verify the facts before releasing details to the public and to work more closely with the security officials”.

An ISOC spokesman, Shinawat Maendech, said the agreement was “not an attempt to censor such reports, but only put in place a mechanism to probe such cases so the wrongdoers can be brought to justice and the victims are compensated”.

Signs of progress

In a further sign of progress, the Thai Government last year announced it was supporting a legislative bill targeting cases of torture and enforced disappearances.According to the United Nations, since 1980 it has recorded 82 cases of enforced disappearance in Thailand.

This week the U.S. State Department, in its annual assessment of global rights, raised its concerns over alleged abuses by government security forces in southern Thailand.Other issues included arbitrary arrests and detention, poor prison conditions, and insufficient protection for vulnerable populations.

In a separate report, U.S. based rights monitor, Fortify Rights, called on the Thai government to make “concrete and genuine commitments” addressing rights violations before an upcoming U.N. Human Rights Committee review of Thailand’s compliance to U.N. rights obligations.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee will assess Thailand’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights next week in Geneva.
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Indian officials say they have killed a suspected militant and arrested three others with links to Islamic State who allegedly carried out a train blast that injured 10 people.

Police stormed a house in Uttar Pradesh state after a 12-hour standoff and gunned down the suspect early Wednesday.

Authorities said that besides weapons, explosives and bomb-making equipment, they recovered an IS flag from the house in Lucknow city, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

The raid happened hours after a bomb exploded in a passenger coach of a train in neighboring Madhya Pradesh state.

The bombing made headlines with media calling it the first “IS attack in India.”

The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Chouhan, said that after the suspects planted the bomb, they uploaded a photograph of it and sent it to Syria. He said that they had been influenced by IS ideology and had been planning more attacks.

According to police, the suspects were radicalized through social media.

In November, the U.S. embassy in New Delhi issued an advisory for the first time warning of the possibility of terrorist attacks in India carried out by Islamic State.

While Tuesday’s attack received widespread news coverage, officials pointed out that IS has been largely unsuccessful in its effort to establish a foothold in India.

A senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Ram Madhav, said that the “sporadic incidents that are taking place, like the one which happened yesterday are certainly a warning to us,” but added that security agencies were alert.

Security analysts say that IS has been trying to tap into local militant networks like the banned Indian Mujahideen as it has done in neighboring Bangladesh, but has made little headway in winning recruits.

“In two-and-a-half years they have not been able to mobilize anything of significance in a country that has a population of 180 million Muslims,” said Ajay Sahni, who heads the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. India has the world’s third-largest Muslim population.

In the last two years, about 70 people have been arrested for either trying to join Islamic State outside the country or for planning attacks inside India.

Sahni, however, said, “There is no real transfer of capability or resource to these individuals. These are people with no real training, experience, orientation or access to materials.”

Analysts said the primary terror threat to India, which has suffered a number of terror strikes, still emanates from Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups.
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China’s foreign minister has warned that the United States and North Korea are on a collision course, citing rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. He’s also urged both sides to take steps to de-escalate the situation.

But as Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke out about what he described as a “looming crisis,” analysts said his remarks more than anything highlight Beijing’s waning influence over Pyongyang and events on the peninsula.

Dual suspension

Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of annual high-level political meetings, Wang Yi criticized Pyongyang for ignoring international sanctions and opposition to its nuclear and missile programs. He also argued that large scale military exercises by the United States in South Korea were also raising tensions.

“The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming towards each other, with neither willing to give way,” Wang Yi said, adding: “The question is: are the two sides really ready for a head-on collision?”

Wang called on North Korea to first end its nuclear and missile tests and for the United States to halt its military exercises in South Korea.

“This suspension for suspension can help us break out of the security dilemma and bring the parties back to the negotiating table,” Wang said.

At the same time, however, Wang tried to distance Beijing from the ongoing dispute, arguing that the nuclear issue on the peninsula was mainly between North Korea and the United States.

Lips and teeth

Wang said this even as he noted that China’s role was indispensable as ties between the two countries were as close as lips and teeth.

Analysts said such calls to return to the negotiating table ring hollow, given that North Korea has shown time and time again its unwillingness to do so.

On Monday, North Korea fired four missiles into the sea off Japan’s northwest coast, the latest in a series of ballistic missile and nuclear tests in recent months in defiance of United Nations resolutions. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that the threat from North Korea had entered a “new phase.”

Although Beijing describes relations with the North as being close as lips and teeth, “the harsh reality is that Pyongyang has now acquired very sharp teeth (nuclear-armed missiles over the last two decades) and Beijing’s lips are bleeding,” said Mohan Malik, a professor at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

In an emailed response to VOA, Malik said that given the recent killing of Kim Jong Un’s half-brother – who was under Beijing’s protection – the political relationship between Pyongyang and Beijing is at a very low point.

“Kim Jong Un is the first North Korean leader who has not undertaken a single pilgrimage to the Middle Kingdom to pay tribute,” Malik said, adding that China’s longstanding priorities on the Korean peninsula remained the same: “no instability, no war, and no nukes — in that order.”

THAAD upoar

And it’s not just North Korea that China has lost control over. It’s influence over South Korea is waning as well, given the controversial deployment of the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system.

Wang Yi echoed China’s strong opposition to the system on Wednesday at the press briefing calling on Seoul to halt the system’s deployment and arguing that the move was “not the way neighbors behave.” China argues that the anti-missile defense system is a threat to its security.

But, despite calls for China to deliver punishing economic sanctions to South Korea over its decision to deploy the system, there is little Beijing can do to reverse the decision, said Ding Xueliang, a professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

“Beijing used to be regarded by South Korea as the only foreign country that could exercise some influence on Pyongyang, but after so many years after so many efforts have been put into this process (six-party talks), North Korea has still been doing what it wants to do,” Ding said.

“South Korea has been terribly, terribly frustrated for so many years. Then, (Seoul) concluded that even if the PRC is so strongly, so angrily against the THAAD system, they have to do it.”

Increasingly isolated

As one of isolated North Korea’s few supporters, the international community has long looked to Beijing to help resolve ongoing tensions on the peninsula. But, China has consistently rejected suggestions from countries such as the United States and others that it could be doing more.

North Korea’s erratic behavior in recent months, has made it increasingly difficult for any country to talk with Pyongyang, analysts said.

But that doesn’t mean that change is unlikely.

Mohan Malik, of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, believes change is inevitable, sooner or later.

“I suspect that more than any other capital, Beijing has its ears close to the ground in Pyongyang and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) is far more ready than others to install a Beijing-friendly regime in the event of a regime meltdown and to wage and win the next Korean war to establish its supremacy on the peninsula,” Malik said.

Given Trump’s unpredictability and view of himself as a dealmaker, the situation may not be as dire as Beijing is predicting, said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

“At the moment, we might perceive the situation between North Korea and the United States to be very tense, but you would never know how Trump might actually react to the situation. He might actually decide to reach out to North Korea,” Oh said. “There is actually unpredictability from both sides and it is not necessarily a train wreck,” in the making.

Saibal Dasgupta contributed to this report

 
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Officials and witnesses in the Afghan capital, Kabul, say gunmen, including at least one disguised as a doctor, have attacked the country’s largest military hospital. 

Witnesses told reporters a suicide bomber blew himself up at the main gate of the 400-bed Sardar Daud Khan hospital in a central part of the capital early Wednesday,allowing several other assailants to enter the facility. 

“I was getting ready to go to the operation theater where several patients were waiting for me when I heard a gunfire. I thought a colleague of mine is knocking at the door. I opened the door and saw a suicide bomber dressed as a doctor. He fired at me and I quickly hid under the stairs. He (the attacker) then fired on another staffer while moving in another direction,” a doctor on staff at the hospital told reporters.

Security officials said Afghan forces and counterterrorism units quickly reached the site. Local television reports said the sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard from within the building. 

Witnesses said ambulances were transporting victims to the nearby Wazir Akbar Khan civilian hospital. Health ministry officials in Kabul said at least two people were killed and 15 others wounded in the attack, but gave no details about the identities of the victims. They said the number of casualties could rise.

So far, there have been no claims of responsibility for the assault, but it comes as Taliban insurgents step up attacks before the start of their annual spring offensive.

Last week, more than a dozen people were killed in simultaneous attacks claimed by the Taliban on security compounds in Kabul.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah, while addressing an event marking the international women’s day a few hundred meters away from the scene of the attack, condemned the violence as a criminal act and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. 

NATO’s Resolute support mission in Afghanistan said in a statement it stands ready to assist the country’s security forces. 

“Once again insurgents show complete disrespect for humanity by attacking a hospital. We stand with the Afghan people against terrorism,” the coalition statement said. 

Wednesday’s attack on the hospital comes two days after a new report warned the ongoing Afghan conflict and increased targeting of medical facilities and personnel by parties to the conflict have eroded the country’s already fragile health care system. 

The non-governmental Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflicts, while releasing its report in New York earlier this week, said it documented more than 240 such attacks between 2015 and 2016 in at least 20 Afghan provinces. It blamed the Taliban and militants linked to Islamic State for a majority of the attacks. 
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A senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday that China’s objections to deployment of a controversial U.S. missile defense system in South Korea were “unwarranted,” and he urged China to redirect its response to “a better use.”

The United States has deployed the first elements of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea, following North Korea’s launch of at least four ballistic missiles Monday.  

Beijing strongly opposed deployment of the advanced U.S. weapons system as an unnecessary and provocative military escalation, and it said the powerful radar the system uses to track incoming missiles also posed a potential threat to China. State media called for a boycott of South Korean goods and sanctions after the Korean conglomerate Lotte Group approved a land swap that paved the way for the THAAD deployment.

“We think China’s objections, if in fact they are based on China’s security concerns, are unwarranted,” Daniel Russel, outgoing assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, told a small group of reporters Tuesday evening.

“We would hope that China would devote the energy and the leverage that it is putting into economic pressures against the Republic of Korea to a better use. And we believe that the best use is to persuade North Korea that it is proceeding down a dead end,” said Russel, a career foreign service professional who soon will become a diplomat in residence with the Asia Society.

Tillerson to China next week

Russel’s roundtable discussion came before Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week. North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat will be high on his agenda during his first Asia trip as the top American diplomat.

Tillerson, who will visit Tokyo and Seoul as well as Beijing, is looking at different approaches to address the immediate threat from North Korea, but a direct diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang is off the table.

“We do need to look at other alternatives, and that’s part of what this trip is about — that we’re going to talk to our allies and partners in the region to try to generate a new approach to North Korea,” acting State Department  spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday.

“Given North Korea’s recent behavior,” Toner told VOA, “we’re not at the point where we’re looking at direct engagement with them. We’re not rewarding that behavior in any way, shape or form.”

Toner said the administration “is also intent in pursuing a constructive relationship with China.” He said Washington was “determined” to ensure that China abides by international rules and respects fair trade as well as human rights.  

Tuesday’s news briefing was the first at the State Department since January 19, the day before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
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Amid reports that the White House is reviewing its policy toward North Korea, the former head of the U.S. Pacific Command says it’s crucial to consider a full range of options — including the use of military force, if necessary — to deter the growing nuclear threat from Pyongyang. 

In an interview with VOA Tuesday, Admiral Samuel Locklear, who led the U.S. Pacific Command from 2012 to 2015, said “dealing across the spectrum of options of how to deal with North Korea is becoming more urgent,” given the communist state’s apparent eagerness to demonstrate its nuclear capability.

“Certainly there are many elements of national and coalition power that range from diplomatic to economic,” Locklear said, “but at the base of all of those would be military power that the U.S. and its allies must continue to consider, particularly when there remains a significant threat such as from what we see in North Korea.”

Exploring options

Locklear’s assessment came a day after North Korea launched at least four ballistic missiles, once again escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Asked whether the U.S. should draw a red line marking a limit for the North’s nuclear ambitions, Locklear said Washington needs to ensure it does not wind up in a position of having to deal with Pyongyang as a de facto nuclear state.

North Korean state media said Monday’s launches were part of military drills, practice attacks on U.S. military bases in Japan. Three of the four missiles traveled about 1,000 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan off the Oga Peninsula, waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone. 

The missile launches also coincided with U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises — an annual event that Pyongyang contends is a rehearsal for invasion. 

Advancing missile program 

Experts suggested two possible reasons for the North’s test launches: advancing its missile program and sending a political message to neighboring countries.

“They have an accelerated [missile] program in mind, and they are moving ahead to try to implement the program,” Robert Einhorn, a special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control in the Obama administration, told VOA. 

John Park, a northeast Asia specialist at the Harvard Kennedy School, also stressed the technical component of the test, saying North Korea is continuing its ballistic missile tests to eventually be able to “put together what would be its first ICBM with nuclear capabilities.”

Jim Walsh, a senior research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program, sees the North Korean move as a protest against the joint exercises by American and South Korean troops. 

Protest against joint exercise

“We often see activity during these South Korean-U.S. military force exercises that happen in the region,” said Walsh. “This is a common parallel.”

Pyongyang has turned up its nuclear rhetoric recently, claiming it is in the “final stages” of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that could strike the U.S. mainland.

Locklear, who is now the president of SJL Global Insights LLC, a global consulting firm on defense and security, believes it is unlikely that Pyongyang has ICBM capability. “It remains a very high, technical challenge for them” to have an operational model of an intercontinental weapon, the admiral said. 

Nonetheless, he suggested the U.S. should assume Pyongyang already has that capability and make plans accordingly. 

U.S. forces began deploying the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, in South Korea. The first elements of the defensive shield arrived Tuesday, and the system could be operational as early as April, according to the South Korean military.

New defense system

The deployment drew strong protests from Beijing, which contends the U.S. system’s advanced radar could penetrate into Chinese territory. Critics also question whether the THAAD system is capable of defending against North Korean missiles, particularly when multiple launches take place just seconds apart — a technique the North has been practicing. 

Locklear, however, said THAAD — combined with existing South Korea’s missile defense capabilities — would significantly enhance Seoul’s ability to counter a North Korean missile attack. 

“The THAAD system is one of the most sophisticated we have,” the retired admiral said. “It’s unlikely that the sophistication of the North Korean systems can deal with the defensive capabilities of the THAAD system as they currently exist.”

Baik Sungwon contributed to this story, which was first reported by VOA’s Korean Service 
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The United Nations Security Council is holding a closed-door briefing Wednesday on North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launches, as China calls for North Korea, South Korea and the United States to take steps to avoid a “head-on collision.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed North Korea suspend its nuclear and missile activities, and in exchange the United States and South Korea halt their joint military drills.

Each action has drawn condemnation from the other side, with Wang describing them as “accelerating trains, coming toward each other with neither side willing to give way.”

UN condemns test

The Security Council strongly condemned the North Korean tests on Tuesday and gave its own warning for the potential of a regional arms race.

The council statement further expressed regret that the government is “diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles while Democratic People’s Republic of Korea citizens have great unmet needs.”

North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan’s northwest coast on Monday, which coincided with the start of joint U.S. and South Korean annual defense exercises in South Korean territory. 

The launches prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to reaffirm what the White House called the “ironclad commitment” of the United States to stand with Japan and South Korea in the face of Pyongyang’s repeated violations of U.N. resolutions.

North Korea conducted two unauthorized nuclear test explosions last year and nearly two dozen rocket launches in a continuing push to expand its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared in a speech on New Year’s Day that his country’s program to build inter-continental ballistic missiles had “reached its final stage.”

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006, along with an arms embargo aimed at slowing the development of its banned nuclear and missile programs. 

Since then, the United States and a vast majority of world governments have repeatedly demanded that the North denuclearize the Korean peninsula. However, Western leaders have yet to devise a plan that would either compel the North to cooperate or create incentives for it to do so.

China-sponsored talks between North Korea and a six-nation panel have been stalled since 2009, when the communist North pulled out of the negotiations. The North had carried out its first underground nuclear test explosion three years before the talks broke down. 

The United States has since said the six-party talks could not resume until Kim’s regime in Pyongyang would recommit itself to halting all nuclear tests and scrapping its nuclear development program. That policy was agreed to during the administration of former President Barack Obama, and President Trump’s government has reaffirmed it.
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A little before 2 p.m. each day, when residents of Phangane village in India’s Maharashtra state usually take a quick nap in the heat of the day, elderly women in bright pink sarees head towards a colorful hut, clutching satchels and plastic bags.

Inside the hut, festooned with streamers and flowers, the women gingerly sit cross-legged on cotton rugs on the mud floor, and pull out slates, notebooks, chalk and pencils. Minutes later, a younger woman leads them in a prayer song before they begin reciting the Marathi alphabet after her.

The Aajibaichi Shala, or grandmothers’ school, is perhaps the only one in India for uneducated, elderly women. Set up by a charitable trust and Yogendra Bangar, a teacher at the village’s primary school, the school teaches the women to read and write, and basic arithmetic.

“These women did not have the opportunity to study when they were young,” said Bangar. “It’s not as if they want to go to college or work in an office now. But they do want to be able to read and write, and sign their names, like everyone else in their families.”

Literacy levels in India have steadily risen over the past decades as the economy expanded and greater emphasis was placed on education. But women still lag men, particularly in rural areas, where girls are often not sent to class or are pulled out after primary school so they can work at home or in the fields.

While 79 percent of India’s rural men are literate, the rate for women is only 59 percent, according to official data.

Aajibaichi Shala was set up last year for women over 60 to mark the International Women’s Day on March 8. It was first run out of the home of the woman who was the sole teacher, 30-year-old Sheetal More.

The opening day was celebrated like a festival, with entire families accompanying the women to their first day of school, More said. Since then, classes have been moved to a purpose-built hut in her backyard, in the shade of a large mango tree.

“At first I was a bit nervous about teaching such elderly women. Even my mother-in-law comes to class,” said More, who has finished high school.

“But they are all so eager, and behave just like little children in class. Every other teacher teaches children; only I have the opportunity to teach elderly women,” she said.

Chores

There is little to distinguish Phangane from other villages in the western state, one of India’s wealthiest.

About 120 km (75 miles) from the bustling financial hub of Mumbai, the village of 70 families is a tidy enclave, with clean mud roads and brick homes divided by fences and gardens.

During the day, women go about their chores, cleaning, cooking and tending to the livestock and young grandchildren.

About 30 women aged 60 to 90 years attend classes for two hours in the afternoon, six days a week.

In the past year, they have learned the Marathi alphabet, numbers and can write their names, Bangar said. The women, including More, wear fuchsia sarees to class to replicate the experience of wearing a school uniform, he said.

“I like going to the school – I have learned to write my name and I have learned the alphabet,” said Kamal Keshav Tupange, 68, as she washed clothes on a slab of stone.

“My knees hurt, so I can’t sit on the floor for long; that’s the only problem. But I still go every day,” said Tupange, who was married at the age of 12 and had never been to school.

It is a similar story with most other elderly women in the village. Most did not go to school as children, and were married at a young age.

While the legal age for marriage for women in India is 18 years, nearly half the women are married earlier even now, according to the U.N.’s children’s agency, UNICEF.

India enacted the landmark Right to Education Act in 2009, giving children from poor and other disadvantaged backgrounds the right to free and compulsory education to the age of 14.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made education of girls a priority, launching a welfare campaign in 2015 titled: ‘Beti bachao, beti padhao’ (Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child).

On a recent Wednesday afternoon in Phangane, about 20 women made it to class with their books and bags, the ends of their sarees covering their heads. One came with her grandchild.

After the prayer and roll call, they recited the alphabet.

Some practiced writing in their notebooks and their slates, their bangles clinking as they focused on their letters.

Others chatted among themselves and giggled. The class ended with a recitation of the multiplication tables, as children ran in to look in on their grandmothers.

“I did not study when I was young,” said Anusuya Kokedar, 65.

“It’s nice to sit with the other older women in the village and learn. I can sign my name now, and read and write a little; it feels good.”
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