The North set off global alarm Tuesday when it fired an intermediate-range missile over the Asian island nation, triggering condemnation from world leaders including the US and Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denounced the launch as an “unprecedented, serious and grave threat” and agreed with US President Donald Trump to “further strengthen pressure against North Korea”.

The North’s official KCNA news agency decried the former colonial power in a commentary, saying: “Japan has now come out with its sleeves rolled up in supporting its master’s anti-DPRK war moves.”

The allies’ “military nexus” had become a “serious threat” to the Korean peninsula and Japan was “unaware” it was “accelerating self-destruction”, the statement late Wednesday said.

It made a specific reference to US forces being based in Hokkaido — the island that the North’s missile flew over.

“The DPRK’s toughest countermeasures include a warning to Japan going wild, being unaware of its imminent destruction,” and blindly following the US, it added.

Pyongyang has warned of more similar tests to come.

The authorities in North Korea are highly nationalistic and promote resentment of the US and Japan as part of their claim to legitimacy.

KCNA said earlier that the missile launch was timed to mark the 107th anniversary of the “disgraceful” Japan-Korea treaty of 1910, under which Tokyo colonised the Korean peninsula.

According to the WHO estimates tobacco kills around 6 million people annually around the globe causing a damage of trillions of dollars to the world economy. Countries across Asia project gloomy trends when it comes to the prevalence of smoking amongst various demographics.  The Asian continent is home to more than 30 per cent of world smokers with more than 80 per cent of these smokers coming from lower income groups.

With feeble commitments to curb the smoking trends, Indonesia has the highest male smoking percentage in Asia at 76 per cent. The annual cost of treating the tobacco related diseases in the country is estimated to be 0.29% of the country’s GDP.

Laos has higher smoking rate compared to other adjacent countries. 57% of its male population is addicted to tobacco beginning as early as 13- 15 years of age. In South Korea male smoking rate is 50%, contributing to country’s 21.4 per cent deaths caused by tobacco annually.

Realising the toll of rising smoking cases in the country, China signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control much earlier than other countries to reduce the prevalence of smoking. However it is still on the higher side when it comes to puffing by Chinese men.

In Vietnam 47% of men smoke and 22 per cent of men die due to tobacco related diseases. Of late there has been some reduction seen in the consumption of hand-rolled cigarettes, however the reduction is not as high as expected.

Although Cambodia banned the use of smoking in public places and work places still the male smoking percentage is 44%. Malaysia has been a long term signatory to the  WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobaco Control and in lieu of that it has banned smoking in public places. However the male smoking percentage in the country is still 43%.

Philippines, the second most populous country in South-east Asia, has the male smoking percentage equal to Malaysia. Recently the president signed an executive order banning smoking both indoors and outdoors. The order covers ban on advertisements and promotion of smoking making it the most stringent anti- tobacco law in the region. Thailand has lower male smoking percentage than other countries at 41%. Tobacco Products Control Act (2017) is the most recent legislation governing tobacco control in the country.

With 34% of male smoking rate prevalent in the country smoking kills almost 15 thousand people in Japan every year. Myanmar has been a soft market for tobacco industry after its government began the reforms. The country has seen marked rise in the smoking percentage. With male smoking percentage at 32% the sophisticated strategies of Big Tobacco industry is estimated to increase the tobacco consumption in the country.

Singapore introduced smoking prohibition in 1970. With the effective implementation of the ban, male smoking percentage is 28%. Male smoking percentage in Pakistan and Bangladesh is 42% and 40% respectively compared to India which is at 20%.  Nepal and Sri Lanka have male smoking percentage of 37% and 28% respectively.

The considerable profit that the countries earn from tobacco industries has deterred them from taking stringent steps towards curbing the tobacco epidemic.

While clouds parted in America’s fourth-largest city, bringing a welcome respite after the storm turned roads into rivers, rural areas of Texas were drenched as Harvey headed eastwards with the city of Port Arthur especially hard hit.

Authorities in neighboring Louisiana had scrambled to safeguard their state from the impact of Harvey, whose onslaught evoked painful memories of Hurricane Katrina’s deadly strike 12 years ago — but New Orleans escaped with minimal rain.

Taking advantage of a lull in the rainfall in Houston, rescuers recovered the bodies of six family members from a van which was swept away by the floods over the weekend.

Manuel and Belia Saldivar and four of their great-grandchildren ranging from six to 16 years in age went missing on Sunday.

“Our worst fears have been realized,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told a press conference, confirming all six bodies had been found inside the van.

So far officials believe at least 33 people to have been killed in the storm, and there is little doubt the toll will rise further — although many of those unaccounted for may simply have no access to phones or power.

“To those Americans who have lost loved ones, all of America is grieving with you, and our hearts are joined with yours forever,” President Donald Trump said in a speech, a day after viewing some of the damage for himself on a trip to Texas.

More than 30,000 people have found refuge in shelters across the Lone Star State, from the giant Houston convention center to small churches, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Brock Long.

In Houston, where Mayor Sylvester Turner issued an nighttime curfew to aid search efforts and thwart potential looting, the two major airports reopened on a limited basis, signalling a slow return to normality.

But at least a quarter of Harris County, which includes Houston, is still under water — and the operators of an organic peroxides plant outside the city warned they were bracing for the risk of an explosion after flooding caused them to lose all power.

“Right now, we have an unprecedented six feet of water at the plant,” Rich Rowe, president and chief executive of plant operator Arkema Inc, said in a statement.

“We have lost critical refrigeration of the materials on site that could now explode and cause a subsequent intense fire,” he said. “The high water and lack of power leave us with no way to prevent it.”

As a precaution, officials had already ordered the evacuation of an area within 1.5 miles (three km) of the plant in Crosby, northeast of Houston, and Rowe said the facility itself had been evacuated for employees’ safety.

‘City underwater’

Even as Houston got a first glimpse of life-after-Harvey, the city of Port Arthur was pummeled by torrential rains — making it almost impossible to reach despite the best efforts of volunteer rescuers.

“Our whole city is underwater right now,” Port Arthur’s mayor, Derrick Freeman, posted on Facebook early Wednesday — assuring stranded residents that help was on the way.

Justin Coleman was part of a crew of three jeeps and three boats that drove overnight from Fort Worth trying to reach Port Arthur, but were forced to turn around on their first attempt.

“We’re on the radio with them right now and every 30 seconds there’s another person rescued,” the 33-year-old told AFP during a pit stop at a gas station in the nearby town of Winnie.

“There’s a lot of babies and elderly that are stuck in their homes right now. They said it’s getting up to their chests,” said Coleman, who runs a construction company.

So far, parts of Texas have seen more than 50 inches (1.27 meters) of rain, while in Louisiana, the top total 18 inches so far was increasing.

Dodged a bullet

Harvey first slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane on Friday night before unloading on Texas.

Although now downgraded to a tropical storm, Harvey made its second landfall just west of the Louisiana town of Cameron early Wednesday, packing maximum sustained winds nearing 45 miles per hour.

Forecasters are predicting another five to 10 inches of rain in the region, with the downpour finally expected to stop on Thursday.

For now, southwestern Louisiana is taking the hardest hit, with a levee being breached in the town of Gueydan.

While New Orleans appeared to have dodged a bullet, the arrival of Harvey nevertheless served as a somber reminder, coming just one day after the 12-year anniversary of Katrina, which ravaged the vulnerable city famous for its jazz music and cuisine.

“I began to pray for the people in Texas after having gone through that same experience myself as a Katrina survivor,” said Crystal Harris, who works for a bank which was taking donations for storm victims.

‘Lessons learned’

In Texas, the damage wrought is staggering — Enki Research put its “best estimate” at between $48 billion and $75 billion.

At least one bridge had crumbled, one levee had breached and dams were at risk, while Harvey sparked the closure of several major refineries across what is a major hub of America’s oil industry.

More than 4,500 people and 1,000 pets have been rescued from the storm zone by the Coast Guard, which expected to rescue an additional 1,000 people Wednesday in the Port Arthur area alone.

The Coast Guard has deployed about 50 aircraft and two dozen boats, but the overall rescue effort, involving other military branches and state police, easily tops more than 100 aircraft.

“We are certainly bringing lessons learned from Katrina,” Admiral Paul Thomas, who oversees Coast Guard operations in 26 states, told reporters in New Orleans — noting that several members of his team are Louisiana natives who are veterans of the 2005 disaster.

The Myanmar top commander met with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan separately to brief the Thai leaders on the situation and other issues concerning bilateral ties.

The situation of the Rohingya – who, using the term preferred by his Myanmar counterpart, Prawit referred to as “Bengalis” – was now under control and would have no implications for Thailand. “They might not be able to take boat trips to land in Thailand,” Prawit said.

Prime Minister Prayut said Thailand needed to provide assistant on a humanitarian basis if any refugees arrived in the Kingdom. “But when the situation returns to normal, we have to send them back home,” he said.

At least 18,500 Muslim Rohingya have fled to the border with Bangladesh since militants of the Araka Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) equipped with home explosive devices, machetes and few small arms attacked 30 security outposts in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung township in Rakhine since last Friday.

A heavy handed operation by the Tatmadaw – the Myanmar military – left more than 100 people, including a dozen security officials, dead. “General Min Aung Hliang told me that the Myanmar army also lost in the battle,” Prawit told reporters.

There has been communal conflict in Rakhine state since 2012 when anti-Muslim sentiment fanned out in the country. Violence has killed hundreds of people and displaced more than 100,000 Rohingya since then. Many of them have taken the dangerous journey from the state and border areas with Bangladesh across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

Muslim Rohingya receive poor treatment from the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar authorities, who call them Bengalis and deny them citizenship. Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan led an Advisory Commission that released its final report last Wednesday, recommending measures to address Rohingya grievances, including giving them citizenship rights.

Prayut said Myanmar needed some more time to fix up the complex problem in Rakhine. “We don’t intervene in their domestic affairs. [I understand that] Myanmar authorities do support and develop Rakhine state,” he said.

During the meeting, Min Aung Hlaing told Prayut that it would take time solve the problem in Rakhine state, as the solution must be based on trust and a confidence- building process, according to a Thai government assistant spokesperson, Athisit Chaiyanuwat.

The Myanmar commander in chief also thanked the Thai authorities for providing good care to migrants workers from Myanmar, and said that authorities in Myanmar were ready to cooperate with Thailand for mutual benefit, Athisit said.

Min Aung Hlaing was in Thailand for the fifth meeting of the Thailand-Myanmar High Level Committee, which was held in Northeastern Khon Kaen province on Tuesday. Myanmar and Thai armed forces are cementing trust and friendly relations between the two countries and the two armed forces, he said during the opening of the meeting.

As the meeting is of importance for property and security issues of the people of two countries, he said “it would bring peace and stability to the border region between the two countries and good benefit to the residents from the border region”.

This year sees pilgrims from Shiite Iran return to Mecca in Saudi Arabia after a hiatus following a diplomatic spat between the regional rivals and a deadly stampede in 2015.

It also comes with the Gulf mired in a major political crisis that has seen thousands of faithful who would usually make the journey from neighbouring Qatar stay away.

On the esplanade of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, the excitement was palpable as crowds from all four corners of the world gathered for a pilgrimage that all able Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lives.

Tidjani Traore, a public service consultant from Benin, said he was on his 22nd pilgrimage at the age of 53.

“Every time, there are new emotions,” he said. “There are new innovations for organising and hosting the pilgrims. Now, for example, the tents are air-conditioned.”

Wearing the simple garb of the pilgrim, the faithful waited at dawn with their suitcases for buses to take them to Mina five kilometres (three miles) to the east.

Muslim pilgrims take a selfie at the Grand Mosque in the holy Saudi city of Mecca, early on August 30, 2017, on the eve of the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. // AFP PHOTO

There, hundreds of thousands will gather before setting off on Thursday at dawn to climb Mount Arafat, the pinnacle of the hajj.

First, however, they must perform a ritual walk known as the tawaf seven times around the Kaaba, a black masonry cube wrapped in a heavy silk cloth embroidered in gold with Koranic verses at the centre of Mecca’s Grand Mosque.

The shrine is the point towards which Muslims around the world pray.

“I still have to finish the tawaf!” said a breathless Nour, 30, from Saudi Arabia as she rushed past without stopping.

Sitting on a folding chair in the middle of the esplanade, Risvana cradled her six-month-old baby who is accompanying her on the pilgrimage.

“I’ve planned everything for him,” said the young mother, pointing to a bottle of water in her bag.

 – Tight security –

Saudi authorities have mobilised vast resources including more than 100,000 security personnel to avoid a repeat of the stampede in 2015 in which nearly 2,300 people were killed.

Iran alone reported 464 deaths — the highest toll among foreigners.

Riyadh and Tehran cut ties months later, after the execution of a Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia sparked attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

Iranian pilgrims were absent from last year’s hajj for the first time in decades after the regional rivals failed to agree on security and logistics.

This year’s pilgrimage comes amid a diplomatic crisis between a Saudi-led bloc of Arab countries and Qatar, accused of supporting extremist groups and being too close to Riyadh’s arch-rival Tehran.

A blockade imposed on Qatar since June 5 has seen sea and air links shut down, preventing many Qataris from making the hajj.

Although Saudi Arabia relaxed entry restrictions across its land border with the emirate two weeks before the hajj, Qatar said only a few dozen of its nationals were able to join the pilgrimage.

This year the colossal religious gathering comes with the Islamic State group under growing pressure having lost swathes of territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria

But the jihadist group continues to claim attacks in the Middle East and Europe.

– Years of anticipation –

On the esplanade of the Grand Mosque, Saudi authorities had placed misting fans to take the edge off the intense heat.

On the eve of the first rites of the pilgrimage, the walkways thronged with people and the smell of musk wafted through the air.

Sitting in the shade of trees or reinforced concrete bridges, the faithful waited patiently for the next call to prayer.

Others continued their march, protected by a prayer mat or a small umbrella fixed on the head with an elastic band.

Several times throughout the day, well-run teams of employees, mostly Asian, cleaned the esplanade with jets of water.

As the hour for prayer arrived, a young woman sat at a table in an ice cream shop and prayed, her hands crossed on her knees.

A few paces from the Kaaba, Egyptian pilgrim Fatiya Taha could not hide her joy.

At 67 the oldest in her group, she sat in her wheelchair in Islam’s most holy spot.

“I’ve been looking forward to this pilgrimage for four years,” she said.

Four days after Harvey slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane, turning roads into rivers and neighborhoods into lakes in America’s fourth-largest city, emergency crews still struggled to reach hundreds of stranded people in a massive round-the-clock rescue operation.

Rain and more rain kept falling, with no sign of the nightmare easing. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner declared a nighttime curfew as the city tries to head off looting in the wake of epic flooding from Harvey.

The White House announced that Trump already plans to go back to Texas on Saturday — a surprisingly quick return to a disaster zone for a US president.

Trump, sporting a “USA” baseball cap and clutching a Texas flag with its trademark lone star, tried Tuesday to strike a unifying tone as he visited the coastal city of Corpus Christi, praising the work of state and federal officials in responding to the disaster.

“We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it,” he said.

Emerging from a briefing held inside a fire station, Trump climbed up a ladder for an impromptu address to the mix of supporters and banner-waving protesters gathered outside.

“We love you, you are special, we are here to take care of you,” the president called out. “It’s historic, its epic, but I tell you, it happened in Texas — and Texas can handle anything.”

“What a crowd, what a turnout,” Trump added, as if addressing a political rally.

The US leader and First Lady Melania avoided visiting Houston — swathes of which remain under water — to avoid disrupting recovery efforts.

But the president was nevertheless seeking to make a political statement, learning from the mistakes of former Republican leader George W. Bush, whose response to Hurricane Katrina — which walloped New Orleans exactly 12 years ago — was widely seen as botched.

Harvey, now a tropical storm, has so far driven more than 8,000 people into emergency shelters across the Lone Star State, and hundreds more still await rescue.

“We’re Trumponites. I trust he’s going to take care of us,” said Darla Fitzgerald, a 58-year-old nurse based in a Red Cross shelter in Winnie, a small town east of Houston, where the rain fell heavily Tuesday.

– One more victim –

===================

A Houston police officer was confirmed as the latest victim of the storm after the body of Steve Perez, who went missing after reporting for duty in the early hours of Sunday, was recovered by divers two days later.

Harvey was previously known to have left at least three people dead, with six more fatalities potentially tied to the storm, and officials warned the danger has far from passed.

On Air Force One bringing Trump back to Washington, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president will return to Texas Saturday and perhaps go to Louisiana, too, depending on the weather there.

“We’ll go back into a different part of the state, to have a chance to see some of the areas we were not able to today,” she said.

She said Trump and the first lady were very moved by what they saw at the disaster zone.

“I think he’s made very clear the priority is taking care of the people,” she said.

Everywhere, the figures from the storm are staggering. The National Weather Service said over six million Texans have been impacted by 30 inches (76 inches) or more of rain since Friday.

Residents living around a chemical plant in the county that includes Houston were evacuated as a precaution, over fears that some of the chemicals at the facility — which produces organic peroxides — might react or cause an explosion.

The NASA space flight centre in Houston said it was closing until Monday because of the storm.

With neighboring Louisiana squarely in the path of a storm now hovering off the Gulf Coast, Harvey is pressing northeastward and expected to make landfall again late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Residents of low-lying New Orleans — which bore the brunt of Katrina’s wrath in 2005 — are bracing for up to 10 inches of rain over the next 36 hours, with a risk of flash floods.

“It is really sort of a wild card right now,” meteorologist Eric Holthaus told AFP of the outlook for New Orleans.

The farthest reaching rain bands from that storm have already dumped as much as six inches of water in parts of the city famous for its jazz music and Cajun cuisine.

– ‘Not over’ –

==============

The National Weather Service tweeted that Harvey appears to have broken a US record for most rain from a single tropical cyclone, with nearly 52 inches (132 centimetres) recorded in the town of Cedar Bayou.

“The single greatest threat continues to be the rainfall,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

“This is not over.”

The Texas bayou and coastal prairie rapidly flooded after Harvey struck the coast on Friday, but the region’s sprawling cities where drainage is slower were worst hit.

Highways were swamped and homes were rendered uninhabitable, with power lines cut and dams overflowing, sparking massive floods across Houston — a city of 2.3 million people — and its wider metropolitan area of six million.

Sixteen-year-old Andrea Aviles was holed up at a hotel with about 30 members of her extended family, having evacuated her home in Winnie, driving past cars abandoned in flooded ditches on the way.

“All our yard is full of water,” said Aviles. “I’ve never seen it like this.”

The National Hurricane Center said Harvey is expected to produce additional rainfall accumulations of six to 12 inches to the north and east of Houston from far east Texas into southwestern Louisiana.

Federal officials estimate that up to half a million people in Texas will ultimately require some form of assistance — but for now the focus remains immediate disaster relief, with many lives still at stake.

“Recovery is a slow process,” Brock Long, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said as he welcomed Trump in Corpus Christi along with Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

“We’ve got a long way to go.”//AFP

Australian Teacher Magazine yesterday withdrew an article which was labelled as “fake news” by Singapore’s Education Ministry (MOE), and apologised “without reservation”.

The article, which was published in its August issue and was widely shared, had quoted MOE director-general of education Wong Siew Hoong as telling an international conference here in May that Singapore is “building compliant students just as the jobs that value compliance are beginning to disappear”.

But MOE on Monday described the statements in the article, written by Mr Walter Barbieri, as “completely false” and “ fake news”. According to his Linkedin profile, Mr Barbieri is the director of eLearning at St Peter’s College in Adelaide.

In the interest of “full transparency”, MOE yesterday released an unedited video and the transcript of Mr Wong’s 35-minute speech he delivered on the first day of the National Institute of Education’s (NIE) Redesigning Pedagogy international conference.

Grant Quarry, Australian Teacher Magazine’s managing editor, told The Straits Timesyesterday that it is investigating the matter and has been trying to contact the author for clarification.

In the interim, the report’s webpage on EducationHQ, which publishes the magazine, was updated with an editor’s note explaining why the article had been withdrawn.

“In the light of the evidence presented, and in the absence of alternative evidence to support the author at this stage, EducationHQ has withdrawn the story and apologises without reservation for any offence caused,” said the note.

Mr Barbieri did not respond to queries from The Straits Times.

In his article, he had claimed that Wong compared Singapore’s stellar academic results in 2015’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) with the data on student well-being and innovation in the economy, which placed Singapore in the lowest quartile.

According to the article, Wong attributed Singapore’s Pisa success to standardised test drilling and a culture of compliance, and said at the conference: “We’ve been winning the wrong race.”

The online article chalked up about 3,500 shares earlier this week. The earlier print version of the article had also mistakenly attributed the quotes to Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng before it was edited and attributed to Mr Wong instead in the online article.

According to the transcript and video recording provided by MOE, Mr Wong did not refer to the Pisa rankings – which Singapore students topped for reading, mathematics and science – in his speech. Instead, Wong said that the literacy levels of Singapore students have “improved tremendously”.

“They are now reading, writing, speaking in a very high level. They are learning their mathematics well, they’re able to solve a lot of mathematical problems very competently,” he added.

NIE said that this was the only speech that Wong gave at the conference and that no other speakers had made comments similar to what was purported in the article, to the best of its knowledge.

The 9th BRICS annual summit to be held in September in Xiamen, China is thus attracting worldwide attention to how Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will shape the bloc’s future course amid challenges and uncertainties stemming from global economic sluggishness, increased anti-globalization sentiments in Western countries, regional security and geopolitical blackswans, among others.

The bloc representing some 44 percent of the world population and 23 percent of the world economic volume is striving towards a stronger identity, a leading platform for South-South cooperation and a larger role in global governance.

GROWING ROLE IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the acronym BRIC (made BRICS by South Africa’s participation later), said the bloc’s economic performance has exceeded his expectations.

“Sixteen years later the BRICS share of the global GDP (gross domestic product) is bigger than every scenario I projected,” he noted.

Currently, the bloc’s five economies together contribute more than half to global growth, serving as a major economic powerhouse.

“BRICS is at the center of solutions needed for international financial system reform,” said Sergey Karatayev, deputy head of the Center for Economic Research at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, citing the increased voting rights of China and India in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“With the BRICS demands, many global governance structures are undergoing a gradual reform,” commented Srikanth Kondapalli, professor at the Center of East Asia Studies under the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“In the last eight summits, BRICS has acquired certain momentum in international relations,” he added, highlighting the bloc’s increasingly  more unified voice in international affairs. “It has advocated dialogue and peaceful resolution of disputes, in addition to lifting any curbs on trade and investments,” he said.

“It tries to protect the interests of developing countries,” he added.

A BRICS credit rating agency to end the Western monopoly, with its establishment still under discussion, is expected to enable the bloc to contribute more to global economic governance.

LEADING PLATFORM FOR SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION

The two-year operation of the Shanghai-based BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), which focuses on infrastructure and sustainable development projects, is hailed as a success story, handing out 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in loans last year alone.

The Aug. 17 launch of its first regional office, in Johannesburg, signals a greater role it will assume in boosting growth in developing countries and promoting South-South cooperation.

The regional office will act as a “face to Africa,” and the bank intends to open others, said NDB President K.V. Kamath.

Experts also highlight the “BRICS Plus” model as important in the bloc’s efforts to expand partnerships, particularly with developing countries.

Chief economist of the Eurasian Development Bank Yaroslav Lissovolik calls “BRICS Plus” an important initiative aimed “at increasing its openness and accessibility to integration for the states of the developing world.”

Karatayev said, “The ‘BRICS Plus’ model will help make the intra-BRICS cooperation as well as the bilateral and multilateral cooperation between bloc members and their partners more effective.”

“Comprehensive and complementary development strategies will enable BRICS members and participants of ‘BRICS Plus’ to conduct fruitful cooperation,” he further explained.

A STRONGER SELF

Karatayev thinks “it is necessary for the BRICS bloc to strengthen internal cooperation in order to tackle challenges from a rise in protectionism in rich countries and uncertainties from their economic policies.”

Moreover, the Russian expert said, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative complements efforts by the bloc to facilitate trade and capital flows.

At the same time, he said, the Initiative, which aims to build infrastructure and trade networks along ancient Silk Road trade routes, is “a showcase for economic collaboration.”

Professor Kondapalli from Jawaharlal Nehru University believes there is plenty of potential to tap in intra-BRICS cooperation. “The total trade between the five BRICS countries accounted for only 4.9 percent of the total foreign trade of these countries,” and “much of the trade is of low-end products,” he said.

In addition to deepening economic and trade cooperation, increased  cultural cooperation and people-to-people exchanges are deemed necessary for building a more stable and solid BRICS bloc.

“People-to-people exchanges are the pillar of all the bilateral and multilateral exchanges. It is the cultural capital of a country that has attraction and lays foundations of understanding between the peoples,” said B.R. Deepak, sinologist and professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Deepak added that it is needed to institutionalize such mechanisms as cultural festivals, media and film exchanges, and BRICS scholarship programs.

There are also calls for the bloc’s foreign ministers to meet regularly as part of its mechanism building efforts, as well as for the bloc to speak with one, loud and strong voice on global political, security and economic issues.  Enditem

Let alone that Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will attend the dialogues on political and security issues on the sideline of the summit attended by leaders of the bloc’s five emerging economies and other countries.

Such opportunities for non-BRICS leaders like Prayut are attributed to the “BRICS Plus”, a model progressively developed by the bloc grouping Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to seek a wider partnership, particularly with developing countries.

The model is expected of a key role in making the bloc, that now contributes more than half to the global growth, a leading platform for South-South cooperation.

The BRICS summit to be held on Sept. 3-5 in Xiamen, China, will thus experience an important moment in Thailand-China cooperation.

The Thailand-China railway project has been a focus of widespread attention in Thailand. It will produce the country’s first standard gauge high speed railway.

A RAILWAY TO DEPICT SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION

“It will be the first standard gauge high speed railway of the Thailand and will greatly shorten the traveling time from Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima,” said Huang Bin, head of the Chinese department at the Kasikorn Research Center, a Thai think tank.

The future railway will “contribute to economic and social development in the less-developed northeast of Thailand,” Huang added.

During the BRICS Xiamen summit, Thailand and China are expected to sign the design and supervision draft contracts for the first phase of the railway project, according to Thai officials.

The first phase project divided into four sections is about building a 253-km railway with a maximum speed of 250 km per hour to link the capital Bangkok and the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima.

In the second phase, the railway will extend from Nakhon Ratchasima to Nong Khai on the border with Laos, where it will be further connected to the China-Laos railway that is under construction.

When the whole project is completed, Bangkok and Kunming, provincial capital for Yunnan in China’s southwest, will be connected by the modern railway.

“The railway will be an artery railway linking Thailand and the Laos, China and other countries through China. It will upgrade Thailand’s role as the regional transport hub and contribute to economic growth in the region,” Huang commented.

Thai cabinet approved the design contract and the supervision contract respectively on Aug.22 and Aug.29, which, according to Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, is to make it ready for Prayut to bring these contracts to China.

Huang said he is excited that the railway project has come to the last step before construction would begin in October. A Thailand-China Joint Committee on Railway Cooperation met 20 times over the past two years in the preparations.

INVITATION TO HIGHLIGHT THAILAND’S ROLE

Huang said inviting the Thai leader to attend dialogues during the BRICS summit shows the great importance China attaches to Thailand’s role as a key developing country.

Thailand also takes part in the Belt and Road Initiative China proposed in 2013 to build infrastructure and trade networks along ancient Silk Road trade routes in order to seek common development and prosperity.

The Initiative, in the opinion of chief economist of the Eurasian Development Bank Yaroslav Lissovolik, complements efforts by the BRICS bloc to facilitate trade and capital flows.

At the same time, he said, the Initiative is “a showcase for economic collaboration.”

Experts hail China’s efforts to promote and highlight South-South cooperation during the Xiamen summit as the BRICS enters its second decade with calls for a larger role of the bloc in the world amid new challenges and uncertainties stemming from the global economic sluggishness, a rise in the protectionism in some Western countries and geopolitical black swans, among others.

Building on the success of the past decade, the BRICS now eyes starting a more expansive partnership to seek inclusive growth. Thanks to the “BRICS Plus” model, dialogues will be held between BRICS members and other emerging markets and major developing countries during the bloc’s annual summit.

Such dialogues, which mean “a wider cooperation”, will help the BRICS to achieve its goals as almost all the BRICS members are major players in South-South cooperation, said Xiaojun Grace Wang, deputy director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation.

She added that the BRICS is not set up only for the development of its five members, but also for contributing to the development around the world.

Li Renliang, professor at Thailand’s National Institute of Development Administration, said the dialogues, by bringing many developing countries and emerging markets together, will help turn the BRICS into a major platform for South-South cooperation in the world.

“I think it is great to have the dialogues as many developing countries are seeking cooperation,” Li said. “The BRICS is becoming more inclusive by adding these countries as their friends to pursue prosperity together.”

The violence, which erupted six days ago after Rohingya militants staged surprise raids on police posts, has shown little sign of abating, leaving at least 110 confirmed dead and sending thousands fleeing.

The displaced include ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the persecuted  Rohingya Muslim minority, thousands of whom have massed at the “zero line” border with Bangladesh which they are barred from crossing.

The bodies of two Rohingya women and two children washed up on Bangladeshi soil on Wednesday, an official there told AFP, as villagers took to rickety boats or tried to swim across a frontier river.

On Wednesday villagers in Rakhine continued to flee their homes.

A Rohingya villager near the town of Maungdaw, speaking on condition of anonymity, said residents fled his hamlet as security forces approached and torched their homes.

“Villagers are running away… where do we have to live now?” he told AFP by telephone.

It was not immediately possible to verify his account but Rohingya who have made it into Bangladesh have brought similar testimony with them.

Large fires were visible early Wednesday from the May Yu river that cuts through the area worst hit by unrest, according to an AFP reporter travelling by boat on a Myanmar government-led trip to Maungdaw.

  Maximum restraint? 

Outlying villages have witnessed some of the worst violence, raising fears security operations are shielded from scrutiny by the danger and inaccessibility of the area.

Rohingya villagers are stuck between police and troops hunting down the insurgents and militants offering sporadic resistance.

But testimony gathered by AFP from the displaced reaching Bangladesh suggests some Rohinyga men are heeding a call to arms by the militants and are staying behind to fight in their villages.

The Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army claims its men launched Friday’s surprise attacks on police posts, killing 11 state officials, with knives, homemade explosives and a few guns.

After years in which the Rohingya largely avoided violence, the group last October carried out deadly attacks on police posts.

That prompted a months-long security crackdown by Myanmar’s army which left scores dead and forced 87,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.

The UN believes that military crackdown may have amounted to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya allegations denied by the army.

On Sunday Pope Francis led mounting international calls for the protection of “our Rohingya brothers”.

The UN has also urged Myanmar to protect civilians during its operations and called on Bangladesh to allow the displaced into their territory something Dhaka is loath to do given it already hosts 400,000 displaced Rohingya.

A Myanmar government official on Tuesday said security forces would use “maximum restraint” in coming days but insisted on the country’s right to defend itself from “terrorists”.

Myanmar’s Rohingya are the world’s largest stateless minority and endure severe restrictions on their movements.//AFP