Friday, August 17, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Police, Soldiers Patrol in Maungdaw amid Reports of Renewed ARSA Threat

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 07:12 AM PDT

YANGON—Border police and Myanmar Army troops have been conducting joint patrols in Rakhine State's Maungdaw District after local authorities received a tip off about possible militant activity by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) from residents on the Bangladesh side of the border.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of ARSA's coordinated attacks on Myanmar government border outposts. The attacks killed dozens of government officials and sparked month-long clashes in Maungdaw that left several hundred militants dead. Both Muslim and non-Muslim civilians were targeted by the militant group. The Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) later launched clearance operations against the ARSA militants, but the indiscriminate actions of the security forces ended up driving around 700,000 Rohingya across the border into what has become the largest refugee camp in the world in neighboring Bangladesh.

The talk of renewed militant activity follows reports from Bangladeshi news outlets last month that the country's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) raided a gun factory in Kalarmar Chhara, in the Moheskhali area of Cox's Bazar. According to the Daily Star's website, the RAB apprehended two gun-making technicians identified as Abdul Hakim and Shahidullah, as well as 20 handmade firearms, a number of bullets, and equipment from the factory.

Asia Times regular contributor Bertil Lintner, who has covered rebel groups in Myanmar for decades, also wrote about the RAB gun seizure in Cox's Bazar. His report stated that the factory produced guns for various criminal gangs in Bangladesh in past, as well as for militias associated with local politicians, and militant groups in Myanmar. His report cited Bangladeshi sources as saying that the factory was the source of weapons smuggled across Myanmar's western border to Maungdaw and used by ARSA in its attacks on the border posts in August last year.

It remains unclear whether the tip off received by Maungdaw authorities was related to the gun factory raid.

Government administrative official U Myint Khine of Kyein Chaung sub-town in northern Maungdaw Township said security forces are always on standby in his region, but had not been reinforced. According to him, authorities were informed by Bangladesh residents about ARSA members' activities in refugee camps. He acknowledged that the information was hard to confirm.

"It's hard to judge whether the information is right or wrong. As you know this is a border region and the situation can change within hours. So all we can do is to prepare as best we can," he said.

He explained that northern Maungdaw is geographically crucial for the militants' movements; militants can cross the Bangladesh border into Myanmar side within an hour. Thus, officials at his location were prepared to take action.

"At the moment, concern is high among the residents," U Myint Khine said.

Maungdaw district deputy director U Ye Htoo told The Irrawaddy that both Muslims and Buddhist Rakhine people are overwhelmingly concerned about surprise attacks by Muslim militants, as they had a really bad experience last year. Some are speculating that similar attacks could break out this month.

Several Muslim residents of both downtown Maungdaw and rural areas corroborated the statement by officials that people fear fresh attacks in the region, adding that groundless rumors are spreading rapidly. Abdul Rashid, a resident of downtown Maungdaw who asked that his name be changed for safety reasons, told The Irrawaddy that police convoys had been seen moving about this week, adding that on Friday morning, fully equipped soldiers and border police patrolled through the town twice. The police convoys contained about 6-7 trucks each, which carried soldiers from a battalion based in Buthidaung, he said.

"Many rumors have spread within the Rakhine and Rohingya communities, including that this time [the clashes] could be more serious than last time. Some Muslims are saying that the Rakhine people will eliminate the Muslims. On the Rakhine side, some are saying that this time the Muslims will wipe out the Rakhine people. Such baseless speculation is spreading on both sides," said Abdul Rashid.

A displaced Rohingya from Rathedaung Township, Abdul Wahid, who has been sheltering with relatives in Buthidaung Township since October 2017, confirmed that about 60 armed border police and soldiers were counted in the area last week. According to him, Tatmadaw soldiers were on guard outside the village while dozens of police questioned Muslim residents of the village about whether any strangers had been seen.

According to Abdul Wahid, a new base housing a police regiment located on the former site of Ale Chaung (a former Rohingya village in Buthidaung that was razed during the Tatmadaw's clearance operations last year) has seen an influx of some of 500 border police and soldiers. The village and police base are flanked by the Buthidaung-Nyaung Chaung Highway. In early April, The Irrawaddy reported on new border bases in Maungdaw established following the 2017 violence. These are now housing troops.

The Muslim village Myo Thu Gyi, located about 1.6 km from downtown Maungdaw and once home to some 8,600 Rohingya, was reduced to ashes and bulldozed to make way for a border police regiment and fully fenced in with barbed wire. Abdul Rashid explained that many structures are being built and that border police vehicles could clearly be seen in the compound. Although the base does not yet have a name, locals know it as the Myo Thu Gyi regiment. An official from Maungdaw confirmed the presence of the Myo Thu Gyi border police regiment and a new one in Inn Din village. Two other bases are planned but not yet operational, the official said.

When asked by The Irrawaddy whether these new border regiments could play a crucial role in security operations or in the event of unexpected militant attacks in future, the official said that parts of northern Maungdaw like Kha Maung Seik, Aung Zan, and Bandula villages are much more important than southern Maungdaw and urban areas. The Irrawaddy attempted to phone a border police major to obtain further information on new border police regiments in Maungdaw District but he could not be reached as of press time.

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Drug Abuse Leaves Many Palaung Women to Fend for Their Families

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 05:20 AM PDT

MONGYAW — Recently, I happened to be in Palaung ethnic villages in Monyaw—a sub-township some 60 miles from the urban areas of Lashio in northern Shan State.

At first sight, it was as if the villages were women only, all of them working on farms, tending to cattle and grinding rice in their traditional clothing and silver jewelry.

I was shocked by their response to my question, "Where are all the men?"

"They are high on drugs at home," was the answer.

On some farms, there was only one man to 10 women, but on most of them, there were no men at all.

"Here, men don't work. They just do drugs at home. Women have to work. They have to work for their husbands," said Saew who runs a clinic on a volunteer basis in Lwel Soh village.

Almost all of the men in all of the 32 Palaung villages in Mongyaw rely on women for their livelihoods, locals said.

In rainy season, women grow paddy and corn. In cold season, they grow poppy, which is an ancestral business for them.

Palaung women work on a farm. /Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint

Ma Un Sa, 40, has spent the past 20 years working on farms and in poppy fields to raise her children.

"I had no choice. I had to feed my children. Otherwise, we would have starved," she said.

She grows corn and rice on a hillside farm in the middle of Lwel Soh village. In cold season, she grows poppy. Her two daughters help her on the farm but her husband spends most of the days at home, sleeping and doing drugs, she said.

Growing corn and rice is not an easy job. It takes weeding, plowing and plenty of elbow grease.

Shan and Chinese businessmen come to the villages to buy opium latex in the later period of cold season. One viss [around 1.6 kg] of opium latex is sold for 300,000 kyats. Palaung women in Mongyaw only earn a maximum 700,000 kyats a year from selling opium latex, locals said.

"Men only do drugs here. They don't work. And there are fights when some women refuse to give money to their husbands. Men beat their wives and many have divorces," said Lwei Aye Naung of Pansai village.

Many women in the villages give birth to between six and 10 children, who have to begin helping their mothers on the farms when they are about nine of 10 years olds.

Some Palaung parents sell their children because they cannot afford to raise them. They go to Lashio and sell them to Shan and Chinese businessmen for 200,000 to 400,000 kyats for a child, locals said.

Girls who remain at home have to share household chores with their mothers, babysitting their younger siblings, tending to cattle and helping on farms.

What is worse is that the custom of arranged marriage is still maintained in Mongyaw. The fiancé's family gives a dowry, but once engaged, the fiancée has to help her future mother-in-law with her household chores.

Usually, Palaung women are engaged as teenagers. Palaung girls say they feel like they are being bought.

Divorce procedures are also not fair for Palaung women. They are forced to return their dowries if they choose not to marry their fiancés after the engagement or if they get divorced after having children.

"Men don't have to pay anything to ask for a divorce," said Mar Aye Saung of Lone Tet village.

After divorce, most women care for the children.

"It is unlucky to be a woman here. In a marriage, both man and woman should work together," said Mar Aye Saung.

An elderly Palaung woman in Mongyaw. /Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint

According to the Ta'ang Women's Organization (TWO), some men from Mongyaw go to China and the Thai border to work. But most of them do not come back and abandon their families.

A decade ago, men in Monyaw were dutiful breadwinners, but these days, men only care for doing drugs, said Lwe Poe Ka Mi Khe, a research officer of the TWO.

Some men have moved to other areas because of recruitment by armed groups, she said. "Men don't stay home as a result of fighting. And drugs are easily available and men use them. So, women had to take a lead role in earning livelihoods. As time went by, it became a custom," she said.

Against all of the outward appearances of shinning silver and brightly dyed clothing, Palaung women lead a hard life in Mongyaw.

Mongyaw is not under the administrative influence of the government, but is an area under the control of the Man Pan people's militia. The Shan State Army-North and Ta'ang National Liberation Army are also active in the area.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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UWSA Plans Major Military Celebration in 2019 to Mark ‘30 Years of Peace’

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 05:12 AM PDT

MON STATE — The United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar's largest ethnic armed group, has begun preparations for a large-scale military parade next year to mark the 30th anniversary of its ceasefire agreement with the central government and to display its continued military strength, according to a party spokesperson.

Nyi Rang, a Lashio-based spokesperson for the UWSA, told The Irrawaddy that the special celebration will be held on April 17 next year. He did not say exactly how many people would participate.

At its schools and military bases, the UWSA is training local youth to march with various types of weapons including rifles and artillery pieces, Nyi Rang said. Footage of these parade drills, including some featuring young women, could be seen on videos posted to his Facebook page.

Earlier this month, Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy that the armed group would use about 500 youths for the military parade and for traditional cultural music and dance performances at the event.

It will select 40 to 50 youths, both male and female, aged around 20, from each of the 10 townships under its control for the event, he said.

Discussing the reason for the 30th anniversary celebration on Friday, Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy, "Our region has been peaceful for many years. We strongly want it to remain peaceful and to understand the value of peace; therefore, we celebrate it."

The UWSA plans to invite State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to attend the event, according to the spokesman, who had no information on whether she would be able to do so. The group also plans to invite the leaders of other ethnic armed groups.

The organization intends to complete construction of a paved road network through the Wa region by the time of the celebration to show that the area has developed in the 30 years since the ceasefire.

"We are working hard to complete paved roads in the Wa region," Nyi Rang said.

The UWSA has not yet signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). It serves as the chair of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) alliance, some of whose members are still fighting the Myanmar Army.

The Myanmar government has pressured the UWSA to sign the NCA, but it and other members of the FPNCC want the government to amend some parts of the agreement.

The Wa Army is estimated to number 30,000 troops and 10,000 auxiliary members, according to Myanmar Peace Monitor. It signed a ceasefire with the Myanmar military in 1989 after splitting from the Burmese Communist Party. Some Wa leaders are the subject of US arrest warrants and have been placed on international blacklists for involvement in drug trafficking.

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8888 Commemoration Event in Singapore Canceled by Venue Management

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 04:05 AM PDT

YANGON – The Singapore-based Myanmar Club has had to cancel a literature talk and musical performance that it had organized for the 30th anniversary of the 8888 Uprising after the event was rejected by venue management said U Myat Maw Tun, the president of the club.

According to U Myat Maw Tun, Singapore Polytechnic Convention Center revoked an agreement for the event to be held on August 26.

"We received the agreement and also paid for a hall in the convention center a month ago. After selling the tickets in Peninsula [Plaza], the center said our event is not allowed to be held due to instructions from higher management," U Myat Maw Tun told Irrawaddy.

"We are not sure whether the instruction came from [convention] center management or Singapore's authorities," U Myat Maw Tun said.

Aug. 8 was the 30-year anniversary of the 8888 Uprising and democratic movement, and people commemorated it in Myanmar with events across the country. The 8888 Uprising was a major democracy movement in Myanmar's history when the entire country took to the streets, demanding democracy and rising against single-party military dictatorship. The uprising paved the way for changes that brought Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party to power 28 years later.

The Myanmar Club in Singapore had invited a prominent uprising student leader Ko Min Ko Naing and political activist-cum-singer Mon Aung for the event. Min Ko Naing planned to discuss the past and future of Myanmar's democracy movement with the generations of Burmese living in Singapore.

According to regulations in Singapore, event planners need to arrange the rental of a hall or room first. They must then show the venue approval letter in order to obtain a letter of permission from the police. The Myanmar Club followed the steps and applied for permission from the Singapore police.

"Police approval usually comes one or two days before the event takes place. If we don't have a place to hold [the event], we won't get police permission either," U Myat Maw Tun said.

The Myanmar Club holds important events for the Burmese Community in Singapore and has managed public meetings there with Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi twice in the past.

"We have never had an experience like that. This is the first time they have [retracted] approval of our agreement," U Myat Maw Tun said.

"We hoped to look back on the past and look forward to the next 30 years among the Burmese community in Singapore. It is really important for our history. But as we are in their country, we have to follow their rules and regulations. There is nothing we can do here, so we had to cancel our event," U Myat Maw Tun added.

The Myanmar Club expected to sell 700 tickets for the event and around three dozen had already been sold. The club announced an apology statement to the buyers and will refund payments for all tickets on Sunday

"They invited me to sing at the event. I don't know the detailed reason for canceling; I only know the planner didn't get permission for the hall," said political activist-cum-singer Mon Aung.

Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will visit Singapore on Sunday at the invitation of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and will deliver a speech on the challenges and the way forward for Myanmar's democratic transition during the 43rd Singapore lecture on Tuesday.

The Irrawaddy contacted the media officer from Singapore Polytechnic Convention Center but did not receive a response.

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2 Police Officers Detained After Argument Ends in Gunfire

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 04:02 AM PDT

MANDALAY — Two police officers in Mandalay were detained on Thursday after an argument between them ended in gunfire. One of the men was taken to receive medical treatment at Mandalay General Hospital for minor injuries.

According to officers from the No. 7 police station in Maha Aungmyay, police corporal Soe Lin and police private Ye Yint Aung fought before they were supposed to go out on night patrol on Thursday at about 9 p.m.

Police officers said the police private opened fire with a 12 gauge shotgun and the police corporal was injured in his right thigh, left ear and forehead.

"The police corporal is receiving medical treatment at Mandalay General Hospital. He is stable, as the injuries were not life-threatening," the duty officer from No.7 police station told The Irrawaddy.

The two policemen were from the Kyaukpadaung and Ngazun township police stations. They were participating in "operation Eagle," a district-level operation in Mandalay that deals with security and narcotics.

"Police private Ye Yint Aung was detained at the No. 7 police station where the incident happened, and the case is under investigation. Since the incident was between police officers, we cannot disclose details of the case at this time. However, we will take action against them under the police law," said police colonel Myo Aung of the Mandalay district police station.

According to the police colonel, the two policemen will be questioned and brought to police court in Mandalay district. Their punishment could range from three to five years, with possible dismissal from their rank and duties as police.

De Hlaing Winn from The Irrawaddy Burmese edition contributed to this story.

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Outgoing Remarks from Rakhine Advisory Board

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 03:14 AM PDT

YANGON — The Rakhine Advisory Board said its recommendations to the government remain a work in progress, although the government has responded to them well so far—most notably that of the establishment of the Independent Commission of Inquiry—during its press conference, before dissolving the Board in Naypyitaw on Thursday.

The Advisory Board to the Committee for Implementation of the Recommendations on Rakhine State, led by Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai, was formed in December last year and has now completed its advisory role saying on Thursday that "work should now progress to the implementation stage." It submitted the final report on Aug.16 to State Counselor Daw Aung San San Suu Kyi and the committee chairman, Dr. Win Myat Aye, Union Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.

The Advisory Board praised the Implementation Committee for its ongoing efforts and progress in implementing the recommendations of the Advisory Commission led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, but also highlighted in its statement on Aug. 16 that it "recognized that much work remains to be done, particularly in the area of repatriation and resettlement."

The Advisory Board's recommendations also included implementation of inter-communal dialogue between the communities, a pilot project for a model township and assistance to the health sector in Rakhine State.

The mandate of the Advisory Board has been completed as it has submitted its findings and the Implementation Committee will continue its tasks, said U Zaw Htay the government spokesman.

The Advisory Board's recommended commission, the Independent Commission of Inquiry, is to investigate allegations against the security forces of human rights violations and related issues in northern Rakhine state, following the attacks by ARSA on security posts on Oct. 9, 2016 and Aug. 25, 2017 which led some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee from their homes to neighboring Bangladesh.

Although its term was a short and one of its members, the UK diplomat Bill Richardson left at the beginning of the mission, the Advisory Board said it assisted "by acting as a bridge-builder" between the Myanmar government and the international community.

"I was pleased to note that since January 2018 when the Advisory Board began its work, relations between the Myanmar government and the UN had improved," said Dr. Surakirat in the statement, citing the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the government and UNHCR and UNDP at the end of May, as well as the visit of the UN secretary-general's special envoy to Myanmar in June.

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China Sacks Top Official Over Vaccine Scandal, Firm May De-list

Posted: 16 Aug 2018 10:56 PM PDT

BEIJING — China has sacked a senior provincial official and is probing a former top drug regulator after a safety scandal at vaccine maker Changsheng Biotechnology Co. Ltd., which again warned it could be delisted over the scandal.

The company was accused in July of falsifying data for a rabies vaccine and manufacturing an ineffective vaccine for babies, sparking widespread consumer anger.

While there were no known reports of people being harmed by the vaccines, regulators ordered Changsheng to halt their production and recall the rabies vaccine. Changsheng has apologized and said it is cooperating in the investigation.

A meeting of the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo, overseen by President Xi Jinping, ordered the sacking of Jin Yuhui as vice governor of the northeastern province of Jilin, where the company is based, state media said late on Thursday.

Jin had been in charge of supervisory work over food and drug safety.

Wu Zhen, a former deputy head of the food and drug regulator, will be investigated by the party’s anti-corruption watchdog, it said in a separate statement.

“The case is a serious offense, in which the vaccine producer violated the law and relevant standards and regulations in pursuit of profits and fabricated false production inspection records,” state news agency Xinhua said, citing the meeting.

“A number of local government officials and supervisory departments were found in dereliction of duty. The case resulted in a negative impact and exposed many loopholes, such as inadequate supervision, and reflected institutional defects in the production, circulation and use of vaccines.”

In a statement to the stock exchange late on Thursday, Changsheng said that because it would face huge fines and confiscation of all illegal income it faced the risk of delisting.

Changsheng Biotechnology did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

More than 40 government officials, including seven at the provincial level, have been held accountable for the scandal, some of whom have been sacked, Xinhua said.

Guo Hongzhi, a senior official at the Jilin branch of the China Food and Drug Administration(CFDA), and Bai Xugui, a senior member of the Jilin branch of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, were removed from their posts, Xinhua. Bai oversaw drug supervision as deputy mayor of Jilin between 2016 and 2018.

Zeng Xiangdong and Yan Haijiang, both deputy directors at the Jilin branch of the CFDA, were also removed from their posts, according to Xinhua.

Four Changchun City CFDA officials were also removed, Xinhua said, among a number of others.

Changsheng is based in Changchun City in Jilin Province. It is China’s second-largest producer of rabies and chickenpox vaccines, the company said in its 2017 annual report.

Xinhua said on Wednesday the company had made nearly 500,000 sub-standard vaccines for children, roughly double an earlier estimate by authorities.

China is no stranger to food and drug scandals, despite repeated pledges by the government to get tough and impose harsh punishments.

Sanlu Dairy Group in 2008 was at the center of a tainted milk powder scandal that affected almost 300,000 Chinese babies and killed six. It filed for bankruptcy soon after it was exposed and several top managers received long jail terms.

In 2007, China’s former drug safety chief Zheng Xiaoyu was executed for taking some 6.5 million yuan ($944,000) in bribes to let medicine companies slip past his regulatory net.

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Facebook Says it was ‘Too Slow’ to Fight Hate Speech in Myanmar

Posted: 16 Aug 2018 09:53 PM PDT

YANGON — Facebook has been "too slow" to address hate speech in Myanmar and is acting to remedy the problem by hiring more Burmese speakers and investing in technology to identify problematic content, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

The acknowledgement came a day after a Reuters investigation showed why the company has failed to stem a wave of vitriolic posts about the minority Rohingya.

Some 700,000 Rohingya fled their homes last year after an army crackdown that the United States denounced as ethnic cleansing. The Rohingya now live in teeming refugee camps in Bangladesh.

“The ethnic violence in Myanmar is horrific and we have been too slow to prevent misinformation and hate speech on Facebook," Facebook said.

The Reuters story revealed the social media giant for years dedicated scant resources to combating hate speech in Myanmar, which is a market it dominates and where there have been repeated eruptions of ethnic violence.

In early 2015, for instance, there were only two people at Facebook who could speak Burmese monitoring problematic posts.

In Thursday's statement, posted online, Facebook said it was using tools to automatically detect hate speech and hiring more Burmese-language speakers to review posts, following up on a pledge made by founder Mark Zuckerberg to US senators in April.

The company said that it had over 60 "Myanmar language experts" in June and plans to have at least 100 by the end of the year.

Reuters found more than 1,000 examples of posts, comments, images and videos denigrating and attacking the Rohingya and other Muslims that were on the social media platform as of last week.

Some of the material, which included pornographic anti-Muslim images, has been up on Facebook for as long as six years.

There are numerous posts that call the Rohingya and other Muslims dogs and rapists, and urge they be exterminated.

Facebook currently doesn't have a single employee in Myanmar, relying instead on an outsourced, secretive operation in Kuala Lumpur – called Project Honey Badger – to monitor hate speech and other problematic posts, the Reuters investigation showed.

Because Facebook's systems struggle to interpret Burmese script, the company is heavily dependent on users reporting hate speech in Myanmar.

Researchers and human rights activists say they have been warning Facebook for years about how its platform was being used to spread hatred against the Rohingya and other Muslims in Myanmar.

In its statement on Thursday, Facebook said it had banned a number of Myanmar hate figures and organizations from the platform.

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On Thai Island, Hotel Guests Check Out of Plastic Waste

Posted: 16 Aug 2018 09:50 PM PDT

KUALA LUMPUR — For the millions of sun seekers who head to Thailand’s resort island of Phuket each year in search of stunning beaches and clear waters, cutting down on waste may not be a top priority.

But the island’s hotel association is hoping to change that with a series of initiatives aimed at reducing the use of plastic, tackling the garbage that washes up on its shores, and educating staff, local communities and tourists alike.

“Hotels unchecked are huge consumers and users of single-use plastics,” said Anthony Lark, president of the Phuket Hotels Association and managing director of the Trisara resort.

“Every resort in Southeast Asia has a plastic problem. Until we all make a change, it’s going to get worse and worse,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Established in 2016 and with about 70 members – including all Phuket’s five-star hotels – the association has put tackling environmental issues high on its to-do list.

Last year the group surveyed members’ plastics use and then began looking at ways to shrink their plastics footprint.

As part of this, three months ago the association’s hotels committed to phase out, or put plans in place to stop using plastic water bottles and plastic drinking straws by 2019.

About five years ago, Lark’s own resort with about 40 villas used to dump into landfill about 250,000 plastic water bottles annually. It has now switched to reusable glass bottles.

The hotel association also teamed up with the documentary makers of “A Plastic Ocean," and now show an edited version with Thai subtitles for staff training.

Meanwhile hotel employees and local school children take part in regular beach clean-ups.

“The association is involved in good and inclusive community-based action, rather than just hotel general managers getting together for a drink,” Lark said.

Creators and Victims

Phuket, like Bali in Indonesia and Boracay in the Philippines, has become a top holiday destination in Southeast Asia – and faces similar challenges.

Of a similar size to Singapore and at the geographical heart of Southeast Asia, Phuket is easily accessible to tourists from China, India, Malaysia and Australia.

With its white sandy beaches and infamous nightlife, Phuket attracts about 10 million visitors each year, media reports say, helping make the Thai tourism industry one of the few bright spots in an otherwise lackluster economy.

Popular with holiday makers and retirees, Phuket – like many other Southeast Asian resorts – must contend with traffic congestion, poor water management and patchy waste collection services.

Despite these persistent problems, hotels in the region need to follow Phuket’s lead and step up action to cut their dependence on plastics, said Susan Ruffo, a managing director at the U.S.-based non-profit group Ocean Conservancy.

Worldwide, between 8 million and 15 million tons of plastic are dumped in the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, UN Environment says.

Five Asian countries – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand – account for up to 60 percent of plastic waste leaking into the seas, an Ocean Conservancy study found.

“As both creators and ‘victims’ of waste, the hotel industry has a lot to gain by making efforts to control their own waste and helping their guests do the same,” Ruffo said.

“We are seeing more and more resorts and chains start to take action, but there is a lot more to be done, particularly in the area of ensuring that hotel waste is properly collected and recycled,” she added.

Changing Minds, Cutting Costs

Data on how much plastic is used by hotels and the hospitality industry is hard to find. But packaging accounts for up to 40 percent of an establishment’s waste stream, according to a 2011 study by The Travel Foundation, a UK-based charity.

Water bottles, shampoo bottles, toothbrushes and even food delivered by room service all tend to use throw-away plastics.

In the past, the hospitality industry has looked at how to use less water and energy, said Von Hernandez, global coordinator at the “Break Free From Plastic” movement in Manila.

Now hotels are turning their attention to single-use plastics amid growing public awareness about damage to oceans.

“A lot of hotels are doing good work around plastics," adopting measures to eliminate or shrink their footprint, said Hernandez.

But hotels in Southeast Asia often have to contend with poor waste management and crumbling infrastructure.

“I’ve seen resorts in Bali that pay staff to rake the beach every morning to get rid of plastic, but then they either dig a hole, and bury it or burn it on the beach,” said Ruffo. “Those are not effective solutions, and can lead to other issues.”

Hotels should look at providing reusable water containers and refill stations, giving guests metal or bamboo drinking straws and bamboo toothbrushes, and replacing single-use soap and shampoo containers with refillable dispensers, experts said.

“Over time, this could actually lower their operational costs – it could give them savings,” said Hernandez. “It could help change mindsets of people, so that when they go back to their usual lives, they have a little bit of education.”

Back in Phuket, the hotel association is exploring ways to cut plastic waste further, and will host its first regional forum on environmental awareness next month.

The hope is that what the group has learned over the last two years can be implemented at other Southeast Asian resorts and across the wider community.

“If the 20,000 staff in our hotels go home and educate mum and dad about recycling or reusing, it’s going to make a big difference,” said Lark.

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Google Employees Demand More Oversight of China Search Engine Plan

Posted: 16 Aug 2018 09:47 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is not close to launching a search engine app in China, its chief executive said at a companywide meeting on Thursday, according to a transcript seen by Reuters, as employees of the Alphabet Inc unit called for more transparency and oversight of the project.

Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told staff that though development is in an early stage, providing more services in the world’s most populous country fits with Google’s global mission.

Hoping to gain approval from the Chinese government to provide a mobile search service, the company plans to block some websites and search terms, Reuters reported this month, citing unnamed sources.

Whether the company could or would launch search in China “is all very unclear,” Pichai said, according to the transcript. “The team has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now, and I think they are exploring many options.”

Disclosure of the secretive effort has disturbed some Google employees and human rights advocacy organizations. They are concerned that by agreeing to censorship demands, Google would validate China’s prohibitions on free expression and violate the “don’t be evil” clause in the company’s code of conduct.

Hundreds of employees have called on the company to provide more “transparency, oversight and accountability,” according to an internal petition seen by Reuters on Thursday.

After a separate petition this year, Google announced it would not renew a project to help the US military develop artificial intelligence technology for drones.

The China petition says employees are concerned the project, code named Dragonfly, “makes clear” that ethics principles Google issued during the drone debate “are not enough.”

“We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we’re building,” states the document seen by Reuters.

The New York Times first reported the petition on Thursday. Google declined to comment.

Company executives have not commented publicly on Dragonfly, and their remarks at the company-wide meeting marked their first about the project since details about it were leaked.

Employees have asked Google to create an ethics review group with rank-and-file workers, appoint ombudspeople to provide independent review and internally publish assessments of projects that raise substantial ethical questions.

Pichai told employees: “We’ll definitely be transparent as we get closer to actually having a plan of record here” on Dragonfly, according to the transcript. He noted the company guards information on some projects where sharing too early can “cause issues.”

Three former employees involved with Google’s past efforts in China told Reuters current leadership may see offering limited search results in China as better than providing no information at all.

The same rationale led Google to enter China in 2006. It left in 2010 over an escalating dispute with regulators that was capped by what security researchers identified as state-sponsored cyberattacks against Google and other large US firms.

The former employees said they doubt the Chinese government will welcome back Google. A Chinese official, who declined to be named, told Reuters this month that it is "very unlikely" Dragonfly would be available this year.

The post Google Employees Demand More Oversight of China Search Engine Plan appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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