US backs bid to document Ukraine damages for post-war reparations

THE United States is throwing its support behind a bid to document damages from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which hopes the effort will lead to post-war reparations, according to a letter seen Friday by AFP.

The UN General Assembly in a non-binding November vote backed the idea of an “international register” that would document damages across Ukraine from the war unleashed by Russia in February 2022.

Earlier this year, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, the head of the Council of Europe, proposed that the Strasbourg-based group take the lead on the register.

The 46-nation Council, founded in 1949, seeks to uphold democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Its members are holding a meeting Tuesday in Reykjavik devoted mostly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a letter ahead of the meeting, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations who will represent Washington, an observer to the Council, at the summit, said the United States would provide funding and serve as an “associate member” of the nascent register.

“As President Biden has stated, the United States has committed to holding Russia accountable for its war of aggression against Ukraine,” Thomas-Greenfield wrote in a letter to Buric seen by AFP.

“Establishing a Register of Damage to document claims of damage from Russia’s brutal war is a critical step in this effort,” she wrote.

The World Bank estimated in March that Ukraine’s reconstruction and recovery needs amounted to $411 billion, 2.6 times the country’s estimated 2022 gross domestic product.

The United States in March also voiced support for another international effort on Ukraine – a special tribunal to consider the crime of aggression.

Ahead of her trip, Thomas-Greenfield spoke by telephone on Friday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

The US ambassador discussed efforts to renew a UN-backed deal to ensure exports of grain from Ukraine, a key breadbasket, said her spokesman, Nate Evans.

After negotiations led by Turkey and the United Nations, Russia in July agreed to the initiative which ensures shipments from Black Sea ports but has not committed to a new renewal next week. AFP

Khan eventually left the heavily guarded court late Friday, hours after his hearings had ended and as protesters a few kilometers away clashed with police, who responded with tear gas. Shots were also fired towards officers, police said.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, the former cricket superstar reached his Lahore residence, where videos posted by his PTI party showed more than 100 supporters celebrating his release and throwing rose petals over his car.

“They keep trying to silence Khan and keep trying to put him behind bars. But Khan has proven that the one who stands with the truth always wins,” 21-year-old supporter Waqar Ahsan told AFP after Khan was granted bail. Zuneira Shah, a 40-year-old mother of three, feared that “the establishment would keep coming for him.” AFP

Inbrief

‘Doomsday’ mother found guilty of murdering children

BANGLADESH Saturday moved to evacuate Rohingya refugees from “risky areas” to community centres and hundreds fled an island as the most powerful cyclone in nearly two decades barrelled towards the country and neighbouring Myanmar, officials said.

Cyclone Mocha was packing winds of up to 175 kilometers per hour (109 miles per hour) and meteorological officials in Dhaka classed it as “very severe,” with their Indian counterparts calling it “extremely severe.”

It is expected to make landfall on Sunday morning between Cox’s Bazar, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees live in camps largely made up of flimsy shelters, and Sittwe on Myanmar’s western Rakhine coast.

“Cyclone Mocha is the most powerful storm since Cyclone Sidr,” Azizur Rahman, the head of Bangladesh’s Meteorological Department, told AFP.

That cyclone hit Bangladesh’s southern coast in November 2007, killing more than 3,000 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.

Bangladeshi authorities have banned the Rohingya from constructing permanent concrete homes, fearing it may incentivise them to settle permanently rather than return to Myanmar, which they fled five years ago.

“We live in houses made of tarpaulin and bamboo,” said refugee Enam Ahmed, who lives at the Nayapara camp near the border town of Teknaf.

“We are scared. We don’t know where we will be sheltered. We are in a panic.”

Forecasters expect the cyclone to bring a deluge of rain, which can trigger landslides. Most of the camps are built on hillsides and landslips are a regular phenomenon in the region.

The storm is also predicted to unleash a storm surge up to four meters (13 feet) high, which can inundate low-lying coastal and riverine villages.

Officials said thousands of volunteers were evacuating Rohingyas from “risky areas” to more solid structures such as schools.

But Bangladesh’s deputy refugee commissioner Shamsud Douza told AFP:

“All the Rohingyas in the camps are at risk.”

Panic has also gripped some 8,000 people in Bangladesh’s southernmost island of Saint Martin’s with the tiny coral outcrop – one of the country’s top resort districts – right in the storm’s path. AFP

THAI opposition leaders toured Bangkok in open-top jeeps Saturday in a final-day bid to woo voters, urging them to turn out in force to oust the military-backed government.

The kingdom goes to the polls on Sunday with voters tipped to issue a damning verdict on former coup leader Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha after nearly a decade in power. But in a country where coups and court rulings have often overturned election results, there are fears the military could seek to cling on– despite the army chief insisting there would be no intervention this time.

Pheu Thai’s main prime ministerial candidate Paetongtarn Shinawatra waved and made the traditional Thai “wai” greeting to supporters as she toured the streets in an open-top jeep.

Dozens of trucks decked out in the party’s scarlet banners paraded from the Democracy Monument towards Bangkok’s main shopping district.

Supporters waved flags and chanted: “Pheu Thai landslide.”

“I hope Thai people will vote for us to solve your problems,” Paetongtarn told reporters.

Despite giving birth to her second child less than two weeks ago, the 36-year-old showed no sign of flagging in the scorching tropical heat.

“It’s only been 12 days, I’m a little bit tired but that’s okay,” she told AFP.

“I’m so excited.”

Pheu Thai has been leading opinion polls, but the party’s route topower could face roadblocks from a Senate handpicked by the military under the 2017 junta-scripted constitution. Paetongtarn’s billionaire tycoon father Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister by a military coup in 2006, while her aunt suffered the same fate at Prayut’s hands in 2014.

Sunday’s poll is the first since major youth-led pro-democracy protests erupted across Bangkok in 2020 with demands to curb the power and spending of Thailand’s king – breaching a long-held taboo on questioning the monarchy.

Those protests fizzled out as COVID-19 curbs were imposed and dozens of leaders were arrested, but their energy has fed into growing support for the rival opposition Move Forward Party (MFP).

MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat made his own push on an open-top truck tour Saturday, rallying support through a loudhailer.

“Please give the younger generation the opportunity to govern the country – we will take care of the older generation,” he told passersby.

Final countdown: Thai parties make last-day pitch to voters Bangladesh evacuations ahead of Cyclone Mocha

The election has shaped up as a generational clash between the pro-democracy opposition, backed by young and rural voters, and the conservative, military-allied royalist establishment embodied by Prayut and his United Thai Nation party.

Prayut, 69, has made an unashamedly nationalist pitch for votes and painted himself as the only candidate capable of saving Thailand from chaos and ruin.

Also in the conservative camp is the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) led by deputy prime minister Prawit Wongsuwan— another former army chief and coup architect who was close to Prayut until they fell out.

The 77-year-old, long regarded as a canny backroom operator in the shadowy world of Thai politics, has been tipped as a potential kingmaker this time.

As he made his own last push for votes on Saturday, he was keeping his cards close to his chest.

“I don’t make any prediction about the result,” he told reporters.

The 95,000 polling stations scattered from the misty forest-clad mountains of Thailand’s north to the idyllic palm-fringed sands of the southern beaches open at 8:00 am (0100 GMT) on Sunday. AFP

YOUNG SURVIVOR. A Palestinian child carries belongings salvaged from the rubble of a building damaged in Israeli air strikes on Gaza city on May 13, 2023. Israel and Gaza traded heavy fire on May 12 but Egyptian mediators launched a new bid to end days of fighting that has killed dozens, all but one of them Palestinian. AFP

A US mother with “doomsday” religious beliefs was found guilty Friday of murdering two of her children and conspiring to kill her husband’s ex-wife. Lori Vallow was on trial in the northwestern US state of Idaho over the deaths of her 16-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan and adopted seven-year-old son Joshua “JJ” Vallow.

Vallow, who has reportedly claimed to be a goddess charged with preparing humanity for the second coming of Christ, faces up to life in prison without parole. Her fifth husband Chad Daybell –the self-published author of several apocalyptic novels -- will soon go on trial separately over similar charges, which also include the murder of his first wife, Tammy.

The couple’s “religious beliefs” were cited by prosecutors as a factor in the murders, and their story was the subject of a Netflix true-crime documentary series “Sins of Our Mother,” released last year. The case first drew national headlines in late 2019 following the disappearance of Vallow’s children, which was first reported to authorities by Joshua’s grandparents. AFP

G7 finance chiefs move to diversify supply chains

THE G7 plans to launch a partnership scheme to diversify supply chains this year, the group’s finance ministers said Saturday following talks in Japan ahead of a major summit next week.

The ministers did not directly cite a desire to reduce reliance on trade with China or Russia as motivation for the initiative, which focuses on clean energy technology.

But the United States has led a push for export controls on chip components to China, citing national security concerns, and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pointed to recent shocks to the global economy.

“Spillovers from Russia’s war against Ukraine and disruptions caused by the pandemic have made clear the importance of diversified and resilient supply chains,” she told reporters.

Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki also said COVID had revealed “the downside of supply chains being too concentrated in one place.”

In a joint statement, the Group of Seven’s finance ministers and central bank chiefs said they hoped to launch the partnership in collaboration with the World Bank “by the end of this year at the latest.” AFP

Broadband internet firm expands in island destinations

CONVERGE ICT Solutions Inc. have reached the shores of world-class island destination Boracay as it continues to expand its domestic footprint to travel destinations nationwide.

“Nationwide expansion and making sure we reach Filipinos’ homes is a long game. This is why we push on with our fiber deployment nationwide, particularly in Visayas and Mindanao where we are still a relatively new name. Two years on and we are where we want to be: we are securing our foothold and making a name for ourselves especially in establishing our presence in high interest tourist destinations,” said Converge CEO and co-founder Dennis Anthony Uy.

Aside from Boracay, Converge is also present in key tourist destinations nationwide such as Bohol, Cebu, Davao, Coron, Baler, Batangas, Puerto Galera and La Union, offering tailor-fit solutions for the hospitality industry.

“As restrictions have eased, we are very happy to be present in these key areas to help boost tourism and assist businesses and SMEs in their recovery. The pandemic proved that the only way forward is to embrace connectivity and maximize the benefits of technology. We are here to show that Converge not only offers them worldclass connectivity, but also technology solutions that can give their businesses a competitive edge,” Uy said.

With over 7.9 million ports as of December 2022, Converge now has the broadest fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network in the Philippines. It rolled out 2 million fiber ports in 2022 alone, driven by the robust expansion in Visayas and Mindanao. In 2023, Converge aims to roll-out more ports in the Visayas and Mindanao. VisMin accounted for a fifth of Converge’s nearly 1 million subscriber base in the fourth quarter of 2022. Aside from Aklan, Converge is present in nine other provinces in Visayas, while in Mindanao, it is present in 11 major provinces. For 2023, Converge is looking to expand to new cities in Bohol, Zamboanga, Palawan, and more cities in Aklan.

Bank of China named best bank in 2022

BANK of China (HK) Ltd. Manila Branch won as the “Best Renminbi Bank 2022” in a ceremony organized by The Asset Triple A TREASURISE (Treasury, Trade, Supply Chain, Risk, ESG) Awards.

Bank of China Manila country head Hu Xinquan said the recent achievement shows Bank of China’s dedication to delivering exceptional services and solutions to address the requirements of its clients. It also reinforces the bank’s significant participation in the renminbi (RMB) market in the Philippines.

“We’re honored to receive such a distinguished award. It is a testament to the tireless efforts and unwavering commitment of our teams in providing the best RMB products and services to our valued clients. This achievement confirms our focus on innovation and service excellence in order to contribute to the growth of the financial services industry in the Philippines,” he said.

Bank of China offers a variety of RMB products in the Philippines such as deposit, payment, settlement, financing, and trade services. The bank is in constant pursuit of providing the best financial services in the country and is dedicated to contributing to the growth and development of the Philippine economy.

The Asset is a widely recognized business news and research organization on Asia’s financial markets. The Triple A Awards is an annual event recognizing companies and financial institutions that have launched or helped implement initiatives in corporate treasury management, trade finance, supply chain and/or risk management.

Tech powerhouse launches AI platform for business

IBM unveiled IBM watsonx, a new AI and data platform to that will enable enterprises to scale and accelerate the impact of the most advanced AI with trusted data. IBM chairman and CEO Arvind