Ever since the technology has been made available, hospitals have received more than 100 applications for the procedure, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien said.

Vietnam’s Law on Marriage and Family allows close relatives to become surrogate mothers.

Surrogacy is permitted only in cases where the woman, for health reasons, is physically incapable of having children.

Eligible surrogate mothers must be between the ages of 21 and 40 and be physically healthy. They must already have at least one child. If she is married, she must also have her husband’s approval before participating in the surrogacy case.

At present, three hospitals — the Central Maternity Hospital, the Tu Du Hospital in HCM City and the Hue-based Central Hospital — meet the technical requirements for taking up surrogacy cases.

Of the 60 patients approved by the Central Maternity Hospital, doctors have taken up 46 cases. The rate of success at the hospital was 50 per cent, Tien said.

Tu Du Hospital doctors have taken up 19 cases out of a total 33 patients who meet the requirements.

Meanwhile, Hue Central Hospital doctors have not yet carried out surrogacy procedures due to technical reasons.

Two off-duty police officers, reinforced by more of their uniformed counterparts, managed to neutralise the terrorists within 11 minutes after the first bomb went off.

Updates from the police in recent days indicated that there were at least six explosions that day. A suicide bomber ignited the first blast outside a Starbucks cafe just off Jalan M.H. Thamrin.

Another militant was killed when the homemade bomb he was carrying went off outside a police post nearby – killing two bystanders as well. Investigators are still trying to determine if that was also a suicide attack. An off-duty cop gunned down one of the remaining terrorists as he was trying to set off a bomb, while the fourth died when a bomb he was carrying exploded, possibly prematurely.

At least 13 suspects were rounded up by the Indonesian National Police’s counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, within days. Six are confirmed to have had direct knowledge of the siege beforehand.

Luhut praised the security forces for their swift, professional handling of the crisis and vowed that they will continue to do whatever it takes to improve on responding to such attacks. “We are working very hard on the ground mapping out terrorists’ activities so that we can be successful in containing them,” he said.

“However, like in the United States or everywhere else, no one can guarantee that they will be immune from any threats. But I can assure you that we can respond decisively and very quickly if (another attack) happens in Indonesia.”

Luhut is a former army general in the Komando Pasukan Khusus, Indonesia’s special forces. He is also the founding commander of Detasemen 81, the country’s first counter-terrorism unit.

He has since traded his guns for politics and is now involved at the highest level in President Joko Widodo’s government and deals with key issues such as last year’s transboundary haze crisis and the emerging threat from extremists.

Following the attack on Jakarta, Joko has been under pressure to beef up Indonesia’s anti-terror laws. Earlier this week, his government and the legislature agreed to draw up new legal guidelines to strengthen the country’s counter- terrorism efforts.

These include granting the National Intelligence Agency the authority to make arrests and allowing the national police to temporarily detain suspects for preventive and investigative purposes. Current laws allow the police to hold terror suspects for seven days.

Luhut said the first revision will allow security agencies to arrest “potential terrorists” and detain them for a longer time as a pre- emptive action. The second bans Indonesians who become foreign fighters from returning home.

Atmadji Sumarkidjo, a senior aide to Luhut at Kemenkopolhukam, explained that the country’s citizenship laws today stipulate that any Indonesian who joins a foreign country’s military will lose his citizenship. But officials have been debating whether the law applies to ISIS, which has a military and controls territory in Syria and Iraq but is not internationally recognised as a country.

The third revision facilitates the prosecution of citizens with links to ISIS or other terror groups.

“We want to strengthen the powers of the police and other security agencies so they can pre-empt terror activities here,” said Luhut.

The move comes after a US envoy urged the quasi-civilian government last week to free all remaining political prisoners before the new parliament convenes next month.

“Altogether 102 prisoners including a foreign prisoner, a New Zealand national who was serving his sentence were released,” presidential spokesperson Zaw Htay wrote on his official Facebook account.

Outgoing President Thein Sein, a former general, has overseen Myanmar’s transition from nearly five decades of junta rule that ended in 2011, releasing political prisoners at key moments in the reform process.

That transition culminated with landmark elections held in November that saw the party of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi — who the junta kept under house arrest for 15 years — win a thumping majority.

Friday’s pardon included at least 34 prisoners of conscience, said Ye Aung, a representative of the Former Political Prisoners Support Group.

Among those pardoned was Philip Blackwood, 32, a New Zealander sentenced to two years in prison last March for insulting religion by using an image of a Buddha wearing headphones to promote a cheap drinks night at the Yangon bar where he worked.

His jailing was condemned by rights groups and read as a worrying sign of surging Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar, which has seen anti-Muslim riots and persecution of the country’s troubledRohingya population.

Presidential spokesperson Zaw Htay said the pardon was signed to mark an ongoing peace conference hosted in north-western Myanmar by a top Buddhist monk, Sitagu Sayadaw, who has strong links to the hardline Ma Ba Tha Buddhist nationalist movement.

“The release was aimed to mark the World Buddhist Peace Conference where the president is currently attending,” he told AFP, without elaborating.

Though many of Myanmar’s hundreds of political dissidents were jailed during repressive junta rule, scores of activists have also been thrown behind bars under Thein Sein’s watch.

Last March authorities launched a violent crackdown on a student-led education protest in the town of Letpadan, some two hours north of Yangon.

Around 60 young activists remain in prison following that episode and face trial accused of stirring unrest.

Prior to Friday’s pardon, a total of 537 political prisoners were being held in Myanmar prisons , according to a report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), an NGO that monitors jailed dissidents in Myanmar.

Min Min, a land activist released from Yangon’s Insein prison this morning, told AFP that he worries about the others still behind bars.

“We want all political prisoners to be freed,” he said. “There are many more political prisoners inside prison.”

– AFP

He said in the latest clash the TNLA attacked RCSS troops on January 19 in Totsan village tract in Kyaukme Township.

The two armies also clashed on January 18 in Kyaukme and Thepaw, he said.

“We’ve never started a fight until now. And we never take them as our enemy. But they ambushed us at least 10 times. Since the first attack, we asked them why. We also based in this region. We demanded a meeting. But no reply returned and fighting has continued,” said Sai Mein.

At a meeting last December of the United Nationalities Federal Council, the RCSS asked the TNLA to release detained civilians and why it had attacked but received no response, said Sai Mein.

“The nationwide ceasefire agreement was signed between armed groups and the government. But there is no agreement between the groups themselves. But there were no big problems between the groups and they’re not each other’s enemies. We have no plan to fight each other. But we don’t see the agreement as a cause for conflict between us,” said Sai Mein.

In the wake of an attack that struck the capital city on Jan. 14, BIN chief Sutiyoso has asked the government to give his agency wider authority to preemptively arrest and detain people suspected to be terrorists.

“Such a suggestion may harm Indonesian citizens. It will allow BIN to arrest and detain anyone under the assumption [that person is] threatening national security,” Wahyu Wagiman, the executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), told thejakartapost.com on Wednesday.

Under Indonesian Law, only the National Police have the authority to arrest people suspected to be connected to acts of terrorism. Police are allowed to arrest suspected terrorists for seven days for investigation.

In the planned revisions of the 2003 and 2013 laws on terrorism prevention and eradication, the government is considering allowing the police to detain suspicious people for up to two weeks.

If BIN is given the authority to arrest, Wahyu fears that the suspected citizens would face difficulties in proving themselves innocent before the courts because BIN’s verification process is different from that of other law enforcement bodies.

The discussions of the revisions began after Jan. 14’s terrorist attack on Jakarta’s main street of Jl. MH Thamrin that left eight people dead, including four of the terrorists, and left 25 people injured.

Critics fear the revisions could bring back the New Order regime when Indonesians were subject to a draconian anti-subversion law passed in 1963 under the dictatorship of then president Soeharto. The law was often abused to silence political activists and critics of the government. It was revoked under the administration of president BJ Habibie following the downfall of Soeharto in 1998.

Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) chairman Haris Azhar also criticized BIN’s request and urged the agency to strengthen its intelligence cooperation with the police instead.

He said arresting suspected terrorists must also be carried out carefully with evidence by highly skilled law enforcement officers.

“That is to prevent any false arrest that may happen to anyone suspected to be a terrorist,” Haris said.

For example, he said, Indonesian people returning home from Syria could not all be suspected without valid evidence.

The chairman of the human rights advocacy group Setara Institute, Hendardi, also expressed similar concerns as he believed the current laws on terrorism were enough to handle terrorism issues in the country. He said the revision was a reactive step taken by the government and would only spoil BIN.

Separately, Jakarta Police chief Ins. Gen. Tito Karnavian also implied he disapproved of the idea of widening BIN’s authority.

He said that under the current law enforcement practices of the police, the rights of people suspected to be terrorists could still be respected.

“With another approach, such as through intelligence and the military, human rights are likely to be violated,” Tito said on Wednesday.

Keeping the police as the only law enforcers able to arrest suspected terrorists and bring them to court would help combat terrorism, he claimed.

“Bringing the suspected terrorists to court can simplify the issues. The public will see terrorists as common criminals, not as notable people,” he said.

The congress, aiming to strengthen party-building in a clean, strong, leadership capacity as well as building a strong political system, said the new five-year plan will be implemented until 2020.

The party will promote comprehensive and synchronised renovation work; rapid economic development, sustainability, building the foundation for quickly bringing the country into a modern and industrialised one, it said.

The party will “firmly safeguard the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the motherland, protect the party, the state, the people and the socialist regime”, the draft said.

Changing of personnel will be seen at the end of the congress next week. Power struggle was going on between two camps led by the current party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The party aims to have economic growth rate average at 6.5 to 7 per cent per year for the next five years. By 2020, per capita GDP of about US$3,200-$3,500 the proportion of industry and services in GDP over 85 per cent; total social investment capital by five-year average of about 32-34 per cent of GDP, according to the plan.

On the social front, the party set a target to have the proportion of agricultural workers in the total labour force of about 35 to 40 per cent and unemployment rate in urban areas less than 4 per cent by 2020, it said.

On the environment, 95 per cent of the urban population, 90 per cent of the rural population have access to clean water and sanitation, while 80 to 85 per cent of hazardous waste and 95 to 100 per cent of medical waste is treated; and forest coverage rate has reached 44 to 45 per cent, it said. Vietnam’s economy grew 6.68 per cent last year, highest over the past five years and better than the government’s forecast.

As many as 1,510 delegates representing over 4.5 million Vietnamese Communist Party members attended the 12th national party congress.

As the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, Indonesia seems the likeliest place for ISIS to try to establish a satellite province of its so-called caliphate, a foothold from which to expand its influence from its heart in the Middle East.

Already, Indonesia’s most-wanted terrorist, Santoso, has pledged his East Indonesia Mujahidin group , which operates in Central Sulawesi, to ISIS’ cause. The terror group has also established links with militants in East Java, Lampung in Sumatra, South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi.

“There are 22 groups in Indonesia that have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” said Dr Gunaratna, referring to ISIS’ self-styled caliph.

“As long as those groups exist, there will be extremism not just in Indonesia, but also in the region.”

ISIS’ influence in the Philippines is also growing, with some experts going so far as to say that the authorities have no time to waste.

After a year-long discussion between local terror groups that had pledged allegiance to ISIS, Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon was chosen to head ISIS in the Philippines, according to Dr Gunaratna.

He believes the Philippine military should deploy itself in the country’s south now to nip the situation in the bud before it escalates. He said: “Our assessment is that ISIS will declare a satellite state in Southeast Asia, and it could be a combination of elements in the Philippines and Indonesia, or it could be first in the Philippines, then in Indonesia.”

Closer to Singapore, Malaysia is also grappling with the spread of ISIS ideology, said Associate Professor Kumar Ramakrishna, head of policy studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

This has even taken root within its military. Last October, two 28-year-olds were arrested at a special forces camp in Malacca for trying to spread ISIS ideology among soldiers. They are among at least 13 military personnel who have been arrested for suspected links to ISIS, according to Malaysian police.

“On top of that, ISIS has an Indonesian and Malaysian unit of fighters – the Katibah Nusantara – in Syria, and these people will come back one day, perhaps sooner rather than later,” said Dr Ramakrishna.

The Katibah Nusantara is said to comprise about 700 fighters from Indonesia and 200 from Malaysia.

ISIS’ ability to mount more devastating and coordinated urban terror attacks in this region will be strengthened as more of such trained, hardened fighters return to their home countries.

Despite its distance from the Middle East, Southeast Asia is a coveted prize for ISIS, and its efforts here show that.

It is not hard to see why – the region is home to a quarter of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, noted Dr Ramakrishna. “Southeast Asia is a natural ’strategic reserve’ for ISIS in that sense. Also, the region straddles important sea lanes of communication that are vital to world trade,” he said.

Establishing a foothold in the region would allow ISIS to “mobilise, radicalise and militarise a segment of the Muslim community”, said Dr Gunaratna.

He said: “The Middle East is too far, but an entity (in Southeast Asia) can be a hub for groups to come to for training, strategy and funding… that’s why this must be prevented.”