Thailand and Taiwan will likely become the first countries in Asia to legalise same-sex unions, with both now in the process of amending legislation to that effect. According to the Thai Justice Ministry’s Rights and Liberties Protection Department, more than 97 per cent of respondents in a November 5-20 online poll voiced their support for a new civil-partnership bill that would protect some rights of the LGBT community and other groups.

A woman takes part in a rally in support of same-sex marriage near the Presidential Office in Taipei on November 18, 2018, ahead of a landmark vote on LGBT rights on November 24.  AFP PHOTO

Taiwan, meanwhile, will conduct a referendum today on same-sex marriage after its Constitutional Court ruled in May last year that same-sex couples had the right to marry legally. It gave the government two years to enact legislation.

In Thailand, Kerdchoke Kasamwongjit, deputy director-general of the Rights and Liberties Protection Department, said the government conducted a series of public hearings in Bangkok and other provinces on the civil-partnership bill earlier this month. The department also organised the online opinion survey covering 3,055 respondents, of which 97.9 per cent supported the civil-partnership bill. Of the supporters, 60.3 per cent identified as LGBT, 20.9 per cent were women and 18.9 per cent were men.

Despite some opposition from rights groups, Kerdchoke said, the bill warranted more support as the first legislation to specifically protect the rights and liberties of the LBGT community. However, he admitted there were shortcomings in the draft legislation, since it would protect only the property and inheritance rights and some other rights of same-sex couples, but not their rights to public welfare, tax benefits or child adoption.

Vitaya Saeng-Aroon, director for foreign affairs at the Bangkok Rainbow Organisation, said the bill should be enacted despite shortcomings, which could be addressed in the future via legal amendments. If approved by the Cabinet and enacted by the National Legislative Assembly, the bill would represent a landmark in legally sanctioning same-sex partnerships for the first time in Thailand.

Participants walk with a rainbow banner past the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall during a gay pride parade in Taipei on October 27, 2018. AFP PHOTO

Thailand would become the first Southeast Asian country to do so. Kath Krangpiboon, a Thammasat University lecturer who won a court ruling in favour of transgender employment, said the LBGT community was quite worried about discrimination in the workforce. She said transgender people often found it difficult to secure jobs in the public and private sectors due to discriminatory attitudes.

Earlier this year, transgender Kath successfully sued Thammasat University in the Central Administrative Court for rejecting her application for a lecturer’s post. But the legislation was still essential, she said, and the next government should propose it and amend the Civil and Commercial Code granting same-sex couples the same rights enjoyed by married heterosexual couples.

Asked why the current government was moving quickly on the bill ahead of the coming election, Kath said she didn’t know, but noted that few citizens were even aware of the proposed legislation in any detail. The civil-partnership bill has more than 60 articles and grants fewer rights and liberties to same-sex couples than the existing Civil and Commercial Code, she said.

It would be preferable if, instead, the code were amended to redefine “married couple”, negating the need for a separate bill, she said. About 8 per cent of the population – some five million citizens – are believed to be members of the LGBT community or a sub-group.

Kerdchoke explained that Thailand started moving towards legal same-sex partnerships several years ago. He hoped the new bill would be the first legislation to protect the rights of LGBT citizens.

Vitaya said the bill was in its third draft and was drawing a mixed response in around the country, with opposition especially found in the predominantly Muslim southernmost provinces.

The bill is expected to go to Cabinet for approval later this month, after which it would be forwarded to the Council of State and the National Legislative Assembly (NLA).

Vitaya believed the bill would likely face opposition in the NLA if new articles are added at this stage to provide wider protection. Based on the current draft, same-sex couples would only benefit from legal protection in financial matters and would enjoy some protection in healthcare matters.

However, since it is landmark legislation, the immediate benefit going to the LGBT and related groups would be legal and wider recognition in society, from family members as well as employers, Vitaya said.

“It’s about better human rights, economic wellbeing, career advancement opportunities and diversity,” he said.

Kerdchoke agreed that there could be further amendments in the near future, especially via changes to the Civil and Commercial Code, to expand the protections of right.

    In an attempt to salvage their reputation in the world’s most important luxury market, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana capped a 1 minute 30-second mea culpa by saying “sorry” in Mandarin in a video posted on a Chinese social media platform.

“Our families always taught us to respect different cultures across the world and because of this we want to ask for your forgiveness if we have made mistakes in interpreting yours,” said Dolce in Italian.

“We want to say sorry to all Chinese across the world, of which there are many, and we are taking this apology and message very seriously,” Gabbana added.

    It was posted on the brand’s official Weibo account, the popular Chinese Twitter-like social media platform, where they have close to one million followers.

The company had already issued a written apology on Weibo earlier this week after the scandal prompted Dolce & Gabbana to cancel a fashion show in Shanghai.

The controversy arose this week after Dolce & Gabbana posted short clips on Instagram showing a woman eating pizza, spaghetti and a cannoli with chopsticks that some deemed culturally insensitive.

But it escalated after screenshots circulated of an Instagram user’s alleged chat with the famously volatile Gabbana, who used five smiling poo emojis to describe China and launched insults at the country and its people.

The company said its account and that of Stefano Gabbana had been hacked, and that its legal office was investigating the matter.

Despite the earlier apology, the Italian fashion house’s products disappeared from multiple Chinese e-commerce platforms.

A spokeswoman of retail giant Suning.com said they have removed all Dolce & Gabbana products after the incident.

The brands also could not be searched on retail giants Taobao and JD.com. The two companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Chinese netizens were unconvinced by the latest apology, with the video garnering over 100,000 comments some three hours after it was posted.

“They’re bowing their precious heads to the renminbi (yuan) then,” one Weibo user commented on the apology post.

    The increased tension over the presence of a thousands-strong migrant caravan came as Trump marked Thanksgiving Day by threatening to close the border if he thinks Mexico has lost control of it.

Vehicle and pedestrian traffic at the busy San Ysidro crossing came to a halt for 40 minutes as dozens of US police wearing helmets and holding rifles formed a line facing the Mexican side of the frontier. Separately, riot police rehearsed deployment movements. US Customs and Border Protection called all of this a “large-scale readiness exercise.”

American soldiers in khaki-colored uniforms set off rockets that exploded with a pungent-smelling white smoke. Helicopters hovered overhead.

    Trump has already deployed nearly 6,000 troops along the border and on Thursday he threatened to go even further.

“If we find that it gets to a level where we are going to lose control or where people are going to start getting hurt, we will close entry into the country for a period of time until we can get it under control,” Trump told reporters, before firing a warning to Mexico.

“The whole border. I mean the whole border,” he said, adding that “Mexico will not be able to sell their cars into the United States.”

At almost the same time as the police and troop exercise, at another nearby border crossing called El Chaparral, Central American migrants from the caravan emptying into Tijuana defied the president with a loud rally.

“Open the gates, Trump! We are not looking for war, but work,” shouted Alberto Ruiz, a 22-year-old Honduran.

After a trek of more than a month from Honduras, nearly 5,000 migrants have been living in a makeshift shelter fashioned from an open air sports arena. It rained Wednesday night, drenching their mattresses and other belongings.

“Let’s go to the border! There we can pressure Trump. We are only wasting time and strength at the shelter,” Carlos Rodriguez, also Honduran, yelled into a bullhorn.

– ‘A special day’ –

“Today is a special day. It is Thanksgiving in the United States. They are not going to lynch us,” he said as a crowd applauded and screamed in support.

As the chill of night set in, dozens of migrants lugged their wet belongings from the shelter and set up a new camp right in the middle of a street near the El Chaparral crossing.

Authorities in Tijuana have set up a job fair in an attempt to recruit skilled workers from among the migrants for the benefit of local companies, while Mexico’s migration agency has offered them temporary residency papers.

Some have taken advantage of the offers but others are simply determined to reach the US.

Since setting out more than a month ago, mostly from Honduras, thousands of migrants — including many women and children — have covered about 4,400 kilometers (2,700 miles), either walking or hitchhiking, before the first groups began reaching Tijuana at the end of last week.

But there have been tensions since they started arriving at the border town, with some locals fearing crime and violence.

The migrants are mostly fleeing poverty and unrest in Central America’s “Northern Triangle” — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where gang violence has fuelled some of the highest murder rates in the world.

Smugglers operating rickety fishing boats prey on the hopes of people who fled violence in Myanmar, charging them small fortunes for a dangerous journey to Southeast Asia, offering an empty promise of a fresh start.

The first vessel to depart Bangladesh for Malaysia since the end of the monsoon was intercepted by law enforcement, who warn others will follow.

Many in the heaving Rohingya ghettos of Cox’s Bazar feel they have no other option but to try to escape, community leaders and aid workers say.

A deal to safely return the persecuted Muslims to Myanmar has failed, condemning them to limbo and deprivation in fetid camps where they are barred from leaving or looking for work to improve their lot.

Sensing a surge, coastguard patrols have been stepped up since the first boat was detected in November in the Bay of Bengal, said Ikbal Hossain, deputy police chief in Cox’s Bazar.

Another boatload of refugees who fled a camp in Myanmar were found off the country’s southern coast in November after spending 15 days at sea in a failed attempt to reach Malaysia.

“As the sea turns calm, the smuggling rackets have resumed their activities. But we have a zero tolerance attitude toward human trafficking,” Hossain told AFP.

But he said traffickers were difficult to detect in the teeming hills where more than 720,000 Rohingya sought refuge after a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military in August 2017.

Terrifying journey

Shabeda Begum, a 30-year-old widowed in what UN investigators called ethnic cleansing, said she was approached by another refugee offering to reunite her with a sister and brother-in-law in Malaysia.

The Muslim-majority nation hosts one of the largest overseas Rohingya communities, many of whom arrived by boat from Cox’s Bazar until that smuggling pipeline was closed in 2015.

Begum was introduced to a Bangladeshi handler in the coastal town of Teknaf and arranged to get the required $120 from family in Kuala Lumpur.

That secured Begum and her two children a spot aboard the crescent-shaped fishing boat crammed with 33 other refugees above and below deck.

“They promised my life would change if I could reach there with my kids,” she told AFP despairingly from a plastic-roofed shanty.

Her son, seven-year-old Mohammad Riaz, recounted his terror as the creaking boat was tossed about in the churning sea.

“I was scared because the boat was bouncing on the waves. I thought I would fall overboard and into the sea,” he told AFP.

Six traffickers were arrested in connection with the failed voyage, police said.

One told AFP the fishing trawler had been due to transfer the Rohingya to a bigger Malaysia-bound ship out at sea.

False promises

At its peak, transnational smuggling networks passed refugees from boat to boat before docking in Thailand and moving them overland to secret campsites in Malaysia.

That route collapsed in May 2015, when shallow graves were found at migrant holding camps along the Thai-Malaysia border.

As authorities closed in, traffickers abandoned boats in the Andaman Sea, leaving starving and dehydrated passengers to drift south.

No one knows exactly how many died in the transit camps or at sea.

Local authorities fear another exodus is looming, as traffickers return to old tricks to lure vulnerable refugees onto ships.

Mosammat Khadiza, a 16-year-old refugee, said her mother put her on board after traffickers promised that a wealthy Rohingya man in Malaysia would marry her.

“We were kept in a fish refrigerator inside the boat’s hull for hours. We couldn’t move inside the tight space,” she told AFP.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR is running awareness campaigns in the camps about the dangers of trusting people smugglers and taking flimsy boats into the open ocean.

“We recognise that the continued maritime movements, despite the serious dangers, illustrate the desperation that people feel,” UNHCR spokeswoman Caroline Gluck told AFP.

“Unless they believe there are other tangible solutions to their plight, Rohingya will continue to risk their lives on boats.”

But amid grinding hardship, with little prospect of a brighter future, camp leaders say the promise of a better life elsewhere would be difficult to counter.

“This is not a life anyone would prefer,” said Rohingya community leader Mohammad Osman.

“That’s why they jump on boats without a second thought when approached by traffickers.”

Despite her first setback, Begum has vowed to try again.

“I will look out for another chance. My brother-in-law promised to take care of us if we could only reach Malaysia,” she said.

The film, called “The Cave”, captures the tense international efforts to rescue the 13 members of the team, that gripped the world’s attention for weeks.

The youngsters were praised for their bravery throughout their ordeal and rescuers were lauded for their successful life-threatening efforts to reach them. Thai former marine Saman Kunan lost his life during the mission.

Waller told foreign media recently: “We want to tell the story of those brave people who selflessly risked their lives to save the boys and their coach. To do it right we need to be as accurate as possible and that is why we are enlisting the help of the real life heroes like Jim [Warny] and bringing him to Shannon Airport to retell his story.”

The film’s Facebook page shows a photo of Thai veteran actor, Nirut Sirijanya, sitting on a chair with the cave in the background.

Nirut is believed to play then Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn, who commanded the successful rescue operations.

Filming is to take place in Ireland and Thailand until the end of December and the film is expected to be released next year.

Waller was a producer of independent feature films, with Butterfly Man (2002), Ghost of Mae Nak (2005), The Elephant King (2006) amongst the titles produced through his production company De Warrenne Pictures.

In 2008, he produced Thomas Clay’s Soi Cowboy (2008) which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard.

In 2006, Waller was hired by Sony BMG Thailand to direct the El Nin-YO! music video for Thai-American pop princess Tata Young. Both the song and MV went straight to No.1 on Channel V and MTV charts.

After producing assignments in Thailand on foreign films Bitter/Sweet (2009), Creation (2009) and the The Prince & Me: The Elephant Adventure (2010), Waller decided to return to his passion for directing with Sop-mai-ngeap (2011), his Thai language cinematic directorial debut. The film was nominated for five Thailand National Film Association awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

In addition to directing again, he served as a producer on the English language debut of celebrated Thai director Prachya Pinkaew (Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003)) with the Hollywood action thriller Elephant White (2011) starring two-time Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou and Golden Globe winner Kevin Bacon.

Most recently, he produced and directed Petchakat (2014), a biopic on Thailand’s last prison executioner, which won the prestigious “Tukkata Tong” or Golden Doll awards for Best Picture and Best Screenplay, given by the Thai Entertainment Reporters Association. He also served as line producer for the action sequel Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), starring Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones, released by Summit Entertainment in 2016.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Science and Technology in Luoyang invested about 40,000 yuan (RM24,200) in the hotel, to help ease the financial and emotional burden of the patients’ families, a move which has won wide praise online.

The capsule-like hotel contains 10 separated pods in double-deck formation, with each pod measuring two metres long and one metre wide and high.

Besides, the pods have phone so visitors can speak to staff members of the hospital at any time. Families of the ICU patients can get a key of the hotel after approval from the nurse.