The case against the pro-democracy activists, including high-profile lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, has garnered widespread attention in the one-party state, where a hardline leadership in place since 2016 is accused of cracking down on critics.

The accused are linked to the Brotherhood for Democracy, which bills itself as an activist network with about 80 full-time members across the country.

Independent civil society groups, political parties and media are all barred by the communist state in Vietnam.

A group of about a dozen supporters were blocked by uniformed and plainclothes police Thursday morning as they marched toward the courthouse in central Hanoi.

At least two were hauled into unmarked vans by plainclothes security agents and others put on a bus, according to an AFP reporter at the scene who was also questioned by authorities.

The group carried signs reading “Democracy is not a crime” and “Oppose suppression of Brotherhood for Democracy” before their march was broken up.

The trial opened under heavy security Thursday with the activists charged under Article 79 of the criminal code, which carries a maximum sentence of death.

They are accused of carrying out human rights training, calling for multi-party democracy and receiving funding from foreign groups, according to the indictment.

Nguyen Van Dai, 48, one of Brotherhood for Democracy’s founders, was arrested along with his assistant Le Thu Ha in December 2015 following a human rights meeting with European Union officials in Hanoi.

They were initially charged with anti-state propaganda, later upgraded to the more serious charge of attempting to overthrow the state.

Dai’s wife told AFP this week that his health has deteriorated during the 27 months of pre-trial detention.

“When I last met him, I think his spirit remained strong but he didn’t look good… his hair has turned totally white,” Vu Minh Khanh said, adding “he’s done nothing wrong”.

Dai has long been a thorn in the side of the communist authorities and served four years in prison for anti-state activity from 2007 to 2011.

The four others on trial were arrested in July 2017 and all have prior convictions as well.

Bloggers, lawyers and activists are routinely jailed in Vietnam and Amnesty International said this week there are 97 political prisoners currently behind bars in the country.

“Vietnam is one of Southeast Asia’s most prolific jailers of peaceful activists — a shameful title no one should aspire to,” regional Amnesty director James Gomez said in a statement.

“An Air Force F-16 assigned to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, crashed at approximately 10:30 am during routine training on the Nevada Test and Training Range,” the Air Force said in a statement.

“The condition of the pilot is not known at this time,” it said.

The crash followed two others the day before.

In California, a Marine Corps CH-53E helicopter crashed with four crew aboard.

“The status of all four is presumed dead pending positive identification,” the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing said.

And in Djibouti, a Marine AV-8B Harrier jet crashed after the pilot ejected during takeoff.

“Doctors said the pilot was in stable condition,” US Naval Forces Central Command said.

US Defense Department chief James Mattis secured a record budget last month for the Pentagon, which will allow investments that have been on hold for several years, including in the Navy, which is overstretched in foreign theaters, and the Air Force, which suffers rapid pilot turnover due to more lucrative private sector options.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the shutdown to start April 26, his spokesman Harry Roque said late Wednesday on Twitter, without providing further detail.

The decision raises questions about the livelihoods of thousands employed as part of a bustling tourist trade that serves some two million guests on the island each year.

Boracay has some 500 tourism-related businesses, which had a combined annual revenue of 56 billion pesos ($1.07 billion) last year.

However in February Duterte blasted the tiny island’s hotels, restaurants and other businesses, accusing them of dumping sewage directly into the sea and turning it into a “cesspool”.

Officials have warned the island’s drainage system is being used to send the untreated sewage into its surrounding turquoise waters.

The environment ministry says 195 businesses, along with more than 4,000 residential customers, are not connected to sewer lines.

In February the government said a total of 300 businesses faced “evaluation” for sanitary or other offences on the 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) island, of which 51 had already been handed official warnings for violating environmental regulations.

Environment Undersecretary Jonas Leones told AFP last month a closure would involve having airlines and ferries suspend their Boracay services and making the beaches off-limits, and stationing police there “if necessary”,

“An iron fist is needed to bring it back to its previous condition. It will be a temporary thing,” Leones said.

The Boracay Foundation Inc., a business industry association on the island, had asked the government to shut down only those violating environmental laws.

“It’s unfair for compliant establishments to be affected by the closure,” Executive Director Pia Miraflores told AFP.

Miraflores said that even before the ban was announced, its shadow had hit some businesses hard in Boracay.

“The tour guides have already complained that they have no more guests. There’s already a huge effect,” she said, adding the quays and jetties were “less crowded” than before.

Some couples who scheduled their weddings on the island up to a year or two in advance had cancelled their reservations even before the ban was announced, she said, with the tour agents also besieged with client calls on whether to pursue their planned trips.

With more than 500 hotels, Boracay employs 17,000 people, apart from 11,000 construction workers working on new projects.

Hundreds of federal agents flooded California state capital Sacramento on Tuesday and Wednesday with local police, filing forfeiture actions against properties being used by Chinese drug traffickers.

“This was a large-scale operation, with millions of dollars coming into the US from China,” Cindy Chen of the Internal Revenue Service, which was part of the raids, said in a statement from the Department of Justice.

“This criminal organization used foreign money to purchase homes and turned them into marijuana grow houses; all at the cost of innocent neighborhoods.”

The IRS was joined by the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as immigration officers and police, in executing search warrants at more than 70 houses suspected of being used for marijuana cultivation, the Department of Justice said.

Civil forfeiture actions were filed against more than 100 houses while agents seized more than 60,000 marijuana plants and around 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of processed marijuana, as well as 15 firearms.

The raids were part of an investigation that began in 2014, when police began to notice down payments on the houses financed by wire transfers mainly from Fujian Province, on China’s southeast coast.

The houses would then be converted into large-scale marijuana grows, each of which could accommodate hundreds or even thousands of plants, the Department of Justice said.

The houses also gave themselves away by using vast amounts of electricity due to high-wattage lighting, circulatory fans, and other equipment.

“These marijuana grow operations are illegal under federal and state law and are used to distribute marijuana all over the United States,” said US attorney McGregor W. Scott after the operation.

“They are a blight on our neighborhoods and create an unsafe environment for the men, women, and children who live there.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said international criminal gangs were trying to impose a “false sovereignty” over certain American neighborhoods.

“The day I was sworn in as attorney general, President Trump ordered me to make dismantling these organizations a priority, and we are carrying out that order with vigor,” he added.

The report measures whether country’s basic laws and information on legal rights are publicly available, presented in simple language and if there is civic participation and complaint mechanisms. It also measures if the processes by which the laws are enacted and administered are accessible, fair, and efficient.

According to the World Justice Project none of the Asian countries figure in the list of top ten countries with open and transparent governments.  In Asia Japanese citizens feel they have the most open system of government which is accessible with government officials providing relevant assistance readily. Japan is ranked 20th globally followed by South Korea which is ranked 22.

Singapore ranked 28 globally is perceived by its multi ethic citizen community to have a fair government that functions on a robust complaint redressal system granting citizens right to information on the functioning of the government.  India ranked globally 32 and fourth country in Asia to have a transparent system. It is followed by Indonesia and Nepal ranked 47 and 51 respectively.

Philippines has seen a decline in government accountability with President Duterte in power and is ranked 54 followed by Mongolia which is ranked 61.

In Sri Lanka, people perceive a decline in the citizens’ participation in government functioning and is ranked 62 followed by Thailand which is ranked 68.

Bangladesh and Pakistan ranked 80 and 83 respectively are perceived to have closed system with minimum public participation and oversight. China is ranked 83 followed by Veitnam ranked 85.

Malaysia is amongst the lowest ranked countries along with Myanmar. Cambodia.

“This hearing will be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online.

We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to testify before the committee, and we look forward to him answering our questions on April 11th,” said the committee’s Republican chairman Greg Walden and ranking Democrat Frank Pallone.

A UN group has urged the Thai government to improve human rights protection for migrant workers, indigenous local communities, and human rights defenders.

The United Nations Working Group on business and human rights had made the recommendations to the government and the business sector after finishing a 10-day official visit to the country, the group told a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand yesterday.

The group urged the government to extend the migrant workers’ registration period – which ended on March 31 – tackle human trafficking in all sectors not only in the fisheries industry, and revoke laws – including orders issued by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) – that deprive human rights.

Dante Pesce, vice-chairperson of the Working Group, stated that Thailand had done well in its efforts to protect human rights. He formed his conclusions after inspecting human rights protection at business operations in Bangkok, Songkhla, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Samut Sakhon provinces, and meeting more than 250 representatives of civil society organisations, affected individuals, migrant workers, academics, as well as members of business sectors and authorities. Pesce, however, said there was still room for improvement for more comprehensive and proper corporate respect for human rights and strengthening access to effective remedies. He said there were some problematic areas regarding protection of migrant workers’ rights, poor public participation in major development projects, and obstructive laws that deprive people of their rights.

One of the most prominent issues that stemmed from the inspection was rights protection for migrant workers.

Surya Deva, the chairperson of the Working Group, said they had found out that more than 60,000 migrant workers had become illegal workers because they failed to register before the March 31 deadline. He said these workers risked being exploited by traffickers and corrupt officers.

Deva suggested that the Thai government extend the registration period and create mechanisms to ensure that the rights of migrant workers will be respected as per UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

“The government should also empower migrant workers, including through enabling them to exercise freedom of association and collective bargaining,” he said. “We would, therefore, encourage the government to ratify ILO [International Labour Organisation] Convention numbers 87 and 98. All migrant workers should be provided information about their rights and the complaint hotlines on their arrival in Thailand in their native languages.”

He also stated that despite the government’s intensive crackdown on human trafficking in recent years, which had helped improve the situation on forced labour in the fisheries sector, human trafficking was yet to be eradicated from the country.

“We note that the risks of forced labour and trafficking are also present in other sectors in Thailand, such as agriculture and construction, which have a high number of migrant workers. We encourage the government to replicate and scale up measures taken in the fisheries sector to improve oversight of labour conditions in other sectors,” he added.

Pesce said after discussions with human rights defenders, CSOs, and affected people, it was found that one of the biggest hurdles in preventing adverse human rights impacts on big projects of both the private and public sector were the oppressive laws and Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (SLAPP) lawsuits.

“We are concerned that the relevant NCPO orders often result in placing unreasonable and unwarranted restrictions on the right of affected people to raise legitimate concerns and protest peacefully,” he said.

“We also heard from community members from across the country how they had been called to meetings by the military for so-called ‘attitude adjustment’ with the aim of convincing them to stop raising concerns about adverse impacts of business operations and development projects.”

He emphasised that the government should amend some of its laws and NCPO orders to align them with the guidelines to protect human rights defenders such as Article 161/1 of the Criminal Code and the Witness Protection Act. He also called for efforts to ensure that defamation cases will not be used by businesses as a tool to undermine legitimate rights and freedoms.

As the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights concluded its visit to Thailand to inspect human rights protection at business operations, it was revealed that the business operations of Thai sugar giant Mitr Phol and a Thai joint venture Energy Earth PCL have allegedly caused adverse impacts on the environment and the livelihood of locals in Cambodia and Myanmar.

The Extraterritorial Obligation Watch Coalition (ETO Watch) reported that more than 600 families in five villages of Oddar Meanchey province in northern Cambodia were displaced from their land and their houses burnt down, allegedly to facilitate the land concession to Mitr Phol’s subsidiary Angkor Sugar Co Ltd since 2008.

ETO Watch said the people affected by the land grab did not get any compensation or remedial measures from the company, even after the company withdrew from the concession in 2015. This has plunged the locals in poverty, and as they are homeless, and landless.

Meanwhile, the Community Resources Centre Foundation decided to take up the issue of the Cambodian villagers who have suffered due to their alleged rights violation by a Thai company. The Foundation’s coordinator, Sor Rattanamanee Polkla, stated that in order to get proper remedy, ensure human rights protection from transboundary investments, and serve as an example to other companies, the local people decided to sue Mitr Phol for compensation in a Thai Civil Court.

Sor Rattanamanee said this was the first-ever case of people affected by Thai overseas investment seeking justice for the impacts from the irresponsible investment. She hoped that Thai investors would learn a lesson from this lawsuit and follow the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The lawyer fighting this case, Somchai Ameen, informed that the Thai Civil Court had already accept this case to consider whether to sue as a class-action lawsuit for all people in the five affected communities and the court has scheduled the next court hearing on June 11.

ETO Watch released a statement demanding that the sugar giant consult the impacted communities immediately and set up a mechanism to discuss remedies and compensation for the directly affected communities

Meanwhile, Mitr Phol defended its operations saying the company had received the land concession legally from the Cambodian government and with assurances from the authorities that all temporary concession areas had been processed transparently.

In another case of alleged human rights violation by a Thai overseas investor, indigenous communities in the Ban Chaung area of Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region released a statement asking the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights to give more attention to the situation of locals impacted by the human rights and environmental violations at Ban Chaung coal mine. It was highlighted in the statement that after the coal mine began full-scale operations in early 2012, the mining operations and the ensuing waste disposal have polluted the air and water and harmed up to 16,000 people living in 22 villages in the Ban Chaung area.

“The effects on the environment and the people’s health have been severe. Many villagers are experiencing breathing difficulties breathing, skin, eye and nose irritation, body ache, and nausea. Some villagers have even developed tumours. There has also been an increase in the reported rate of miscarriages,” the statement wrote.

Dante Pesce, vice chairperson of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, acknowledged the problems and urged the Thai government to set up more proactive mechanisms to monitor and prevent human rights violations by Thai investors in other countries and allow the affected people to easily access remediation.

It was the latest example of what rights groups say is growing intolerance towards Malaysia’s gay community as religious fundamentalism increases, eroding the multi-ethnic country’s traditionally moderate Islam.

The contest organised by the Muslim Students Association at publicly-owned Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) called for participants to create videos and posters as part of a campaign called “Back to Nature”.

Amirah Sulaiman, a 22-year-old association member, told AFP the programme was a “soft approach” to return members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community to the “natural path”.

“We will work hard to convert them,” she said. “LGBT is like smoking — it is bad for health.”

“We want to be close to LGBT people and influence them via Islam,” she added.

The winning entries of last month’s contest were a video that featured drawings of a member of the LGBT community who started to change after meeting a pious friend, and a colourful poster urging gay people to “return to the path of Allah”.

Homosexuality is taboo in Malaysia and the country retains its colonial-era criminal ban on sodomy, with punishments of up to 20 years in prison, caning or a fine.

Thilaga Sulathireh, founder of transgender rights group Justice for Sisters, said the university contest could cause much damage.

“It can cause harm, such as anxiety, depression and suicide attempts,” she said.

“There must be more programmes with facts to educate people about (the LGBT community).”

In February a stereotype-laden checklist for spotting gay men and lesbian women published by a popular Malaysian newspaper sparked outrage.

The Malay-language tabloid Sinar Harian claimed gay men love to go to the gym — just to check out other men — wear tight clothes to show off their physiques and tend to sport beards, while lesbians “hate men” and enjoy hugging.

Last June Malaysian health authorities were forced to backpedal on plans for a contest to “prevent” homosexuality.

Japan’s “snow monkeys” are known for their love of hot springs in the country’s northern Nagano region, with tourists flocking to photograph the mediating macaques soaking in steaming baths.

This picture taken on December 10, 2012 shows Japanese macaques, commonly referred to as “snow” monkeys, taking an open-air hot spring bath, or “onsen”, at the Jigokudani (Hell’s Valley) Monkey Park in the town of Yamanouchi, Nagano prefecture. A relaxing soak in a hot tub is a time-honoured stress reliever but the advantages are not confined to humans — with monkeys also benefiting from spa time, researchers in Japan said on April 4, 2018. // AFP PHOTO

It was long assumed that the blissed-out bathers were simply trying to warm up during the chilly winter months, when snow blankets the region.

But experts at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University who observed 12 female Japanese macaques in 2014 at the Jigokudani Yaen-Koen monkey park in Nagano found there was more to it.

They examined the bathing behaviour of the monkeys and collected their excrement to measure glucocorticoid, a hormone whose concentration increases when stress levels are high.

They found that stress levels in the monkeys, aged between five and 24, were about 20 percent lower on average after bathing.

The results of their study were published this week.

“The study showed that bathing in hot springs is beneficial not only for people but for Japanese macaques too,” researcher Rafaela Sayuri Takeshita told AFP.

Takeshita believes the spa treatment may have additional benefits for the macaques, perhaps increasing both fertility and longevity.

“We also want to study the relationship between bathing and their reproduction and longevity in the future,” she said.