UN refugees returned to China 'confess' to charges

Jiang Yefei fled China in 2008 after repeated run-ins with Chinese authorities over human rights [Courtesy: Jiang Yefei's family]

Two Chinese dissidents recognised as UN refugees who were forcibly deported from Thailand to China last month have appeared on Chinese state-run television and confessed to human-trafficking offences.

CCTV reported that Jiang Yefei was arrested for "assisting others to illegally cross the national border", and Dong Guangping was charged with using a trafficking network to flee China while awaiting trial on sedition charges.

The families of the men allege Chinese officials targeted them because of their political activities, and were using the human-trafficking accusations as justification for their illegal deportation from Thailand.

Looking tired and speaking slowly, Jiang confessed to the charge. It was unclear whether he was under any duress.

"I know it is not legal to do such things and I am remorseful," Jiang said. "From now on, I will try to control my behaviour and will not be involved in these activities any more."

Democracy campaigner Sheng Xue told Al Jazeera it appeared Jiang had been beaten.

"It is very clear they have been forced to do this and it seems that at least Jiang Yefei has been tortured," Sheng said. "We can see that he is very swollen in the face."

It was the first time the two men were seen since being taken from a detention centre in the Thai capital Bangkok in November and deported to China.

Jiang is a prominent pro-democracy campaigner and creator of a controversial series of cartoons depicting Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping in compromising situations.

UN status did not help

Both men fled China after being imprisoned for involvement in illegal human rights and pro-democracy movements.

They had been recognised as refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) and were granted resettlement in Canada. However, this international protection did not prevent their deportation from Thailand.

The state television report emphasised the deportations were a joint operation between Thai and Chinese officials.

"According to Sino-Thai police coordination, the Thai police transferred the two criminal suspects to China for further investigation," the report said.

Thailand's military government has come under increased pressure from the international community for deporting Chinese dissidents to China, where rights groups say they could face prison and torture.

In July, 109 ethnic Muslim Uighurs were deported back to China from Thailand.

Three other Chinese citizens were sent to China with Dong and Jiang. Their identities have not been confirmed.

The CCTV report said Dong and Jiang were still being investigated for other offences and they are "allegedly guilty of other crimes".

Car-bomb attack kills governor of Yemen's Aden

Major General Jafar Mohammed Saad was recently appointed as governor of Aden [Saleh al-Obeidi/Getty]

The governor of Yemen's port city of Aden, Major-General Jaafar Mohammed Saad, was killed on Sunday in a car-bomb attack along with five of his bodyguards.

The automobile assault occurred in Aden's Tawahi district in the country's south.

Tawahi has become a stronghold in recent months for armed groups, including al-Qaeda whose fighters have expanded their presence across the district.

Earlier reports said six bodyguards were killed along with Saad in a rocket-propelled grenade attack.

Saad was only recently appointed governor and was known to be close to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who returned to Aden last month after several months in exile in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Pro-Hadi forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have battled Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since March, after the Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and advanced south - forcing Hadi's government to flee.

Saad's death comes a day after the country's UN envoy held talks with Hadi in Aden aimed at kickstarting peace talks between the warring sides.

On Saturday, masked gunmen on motorcycles carried out separate attacks on vehicles in Aden, killing Colonel Aqeel al-Khodr, a military intelligence official, and Judge Mohsen Alwan, who was known for sentencing al-Qaeda fighters.

Three other people were killed in the attack on Alwan, which was not immediately claimed.

Saad's convoy was targeted while he was driving in Al-Tawahi district of Aden on Sunday morning [YouTube]

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Sanaa, Hisham al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst, said the assassination of the governor fell in the patern of political killings in Aden in recent months.

"Major General Jaafar Mohammed Saad was pro-secession of the south of Yemen and was under a lot of pressure," Omeisy said, speaking to Al Jazeera from Sanaa.

"He was blocked from getting to his office several times in the past weeks and his movement in the city was very restricted. To a lot of people in Aden, this attack does not come as much of a surprise," Omeisy added.

"There is a security vacuum in Aden. Al-Qaeda and other militias are running freely. So it's very instable and therefore no surprise that the governor was targeted after we've seen several assassinations over the past two months," he said.

"It's likely going to get even worse, especially now that al-Qaeda has taken over in two cities just a few kilometres away from Aden. So they'll be moving into Aden and I think you'll see a war in the streets there very soon."

Jaafar Mohammed Saad (left) was was known to be close to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi (right) who returned to Aden last month after several months in exile in Riyadh [STR/AFP/Getty]

Thai king, longest-reigning monarch, marks 88th birthday

BANGKOK (AP) — The people of Thailand on Saturday marked the 88th birthday of their king, the world's longest-reigning monarch, but with their once-vigorous leader in a hospital and unseen in public for three months, the celebrations were the most subdued in memory.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej looked frail on his last appearance before the general public on Sept. 1, when he was taken on a brief tour of the Bangkok hospital where he has spent most of the last six years. His most recent ailment was a lung infection that required him to be fed intravenously and use a machine to aid his breathing.

Many public activities were being held for the royal birthday, but there were no joyous celebrations of the type that used to be held before the decline of the king's health. One major gathering point this year was outside the hospital that has become his de facto palace, where well-wishers came to offer their prayers.

The king's other medical issues in recent years have included excess fluid in the brain and an operation to remove his gallbladder.

A somber reminder of his generation's passing came Saturday morning with the death of 96-year-old former Foreign Minister Siddhi Savetsila, a member of the Privy Council, the king's personal advisory board.

While he is a constitutional monarch with no formal political role, Bhumibol — King Rama IX — has generally been regarded as Thailand's unifying figure. His intervention during major political crises is generally seen as having been key to restoring the status quo.

Before the decline in his health, Bhumibol's birthday had also been the occasion for a much-anticipated annual speech in which he would speak his mind to exercise his authority as the country's moral leader.

Love of the monarchy is almost seen as the definition of Thainess. But it is not so clear whether the people's strong devotion for the king will be transferred to his son and heir apparent, 63-year-old Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, who does not have his father's record of public service.

Social and political schisms that have sometimes led to violence over the past decade have added to the air of uncertainty about what may happen after Bhumibol's reign is over.

"I don't know what to think," said Thaweewat Chongsuanoiy, a banker. He was wearing a 'Bike for Dad' T-shirt promoting a mass cycling event being held Dec. 11 under the prince's auspices to honor the king.

"He has been the person that holds the people together; without him, people would be lost," Thaweewat said.

Chuck Williams, founder of Williams-Sonoma, dies at 100

The retailer of high-end home goods said Williams died peacefully of natural causes Saturday at his home in San Francisco.

Williams opened his first Williams-Sonoma store in Sonoma, California, in 1956 inspired by a trip to Paris three years earlier. A lover of cooking and entertaining, he wanted U.S. professional chefs and home cooks to have access to high-quality cookware and tools.

"I couldn't get over seeing so many great things for cooking, the heavy pots and pans, white porcelain ovenware, country earthenware, great tools and professional knives," Williams told The Washington Post in 2005.

He refurbished the store off Sonoma's town square, covering the floor with black and white checkerboard tiles and painting the walls a bright yellow that he'd seen in pictures. He built custom shelving to display individual pots and pans and crafted a simple logo with the words "Williams" and "Sonoma" in block letters over a woodcut illustration of a pineapple — a symbol of hospitality.

The shop was such an enormous success that in 1958, he relocated to a 3,000-square foot store in San Francisco, next to the city's bustling Union Square shopping district.

Julia Child's landmark 1961 cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and her cooking show on television sent even more cooks interested in French cuisine to Williams-Sonoma and by 11 years later, that store had expanded to twice its original size and the catalog, first published in black and white in 1958, was flourishing.

Renowned chef and restaurateur Thomas Keller said Williams made a major contribution to the world of cuisine.

"His tireless search for new equipment, techniques and ingredients to feature at Williams-Sonoma brought the pleasures of using fine cookware into reach for Americans, and by following his passion, Chuck allowed us to fulfill ours," Keller said in a statement. "As we do with all of our mentors, we must acknowledge and be thankful for his vision and commitment; for what he did has impacted kitchens and restaurants worldwide. Chuck Williams once said, 'If you love what you do, then the world will fall in love with you.' We fell for you, Chuck, and we thank you for touching our lives."

Born Oct. 2, 1915 in northern Florida, Mr. Williams' earliest memories were of hand-mixing egg whites for divinity fudge and lemon meringue pies with his grandmother, who once owned her own restaurant.

Williams' family moved to Palm Springs, California, during the Great Depression. He later relocated to Los Angeles, where he worked as a window dresser at the I.Magnin and Bullocks department stores. During World War II, he traveled to India and Africa, exploring the food, drinks and unique cooking techniques and tools of those parts of the world.

After returning home, he visited Sonoma and decided to move there and start a home construction business before venturing into the world of high-end cooking ingredients and home goods.

"With his impeccable taste and unique talent for selecting the right products at the right time, he built a powerful brand that inspired a cultural revolution around food and had immeasurable impact on home and family life around the world," said Janet Hayes, Williams-Sonoma brand president.

He sold the company in 1979, but he remained closely involved with it.

Tens of thousands rally against South Korea president

Tens of thousands of protesters marched in the South Korean capital on Saturday accusing President Park Geun-hye of pushing pro-business labour laws and attacking personal and political freedoms.

The march was organised by labour, farming and civic groups opposing what they called the president's effort to glorify her father's authoritarian rule.

An estimated crowd of 30,000 people - many wearing masks in defiance of Park's call for a ban on mask-wearing during demonstrations - marched through the city centre en masse.

Demonstrators carried signs and banners with slogans that included "Park Geun-hye step down" and "Stop regressive changes to labour laws".

Park's administration is facing mounting resentment over a range of issues, including her plan to impose new history textbooks on schools, to further open the agricultural market, and to reform the labour market by making the dismissal of workers easier and cutting wages for older workers.

An estimated crowd of 30,000 people marched through the city centre in Seoul on Saturday [Ahn Young-joon/AP]

"President Park, Don't try to turn South Korea's national history into your family's private history," said a banner carried by a female student at a rally outside City Hall.

"Overall many are coming out onto the streets to express a general frustration with just the way life is in Seoul at the moment and in Korea in general. Al Jazeera's Margas Ortigas, reporting from Seoul, said.

"They feel that there is a widening wealth gap and that the workers are only becoming poor."

The march began on the same streets where a demonstration three weeks earlier drew about 70,000 people, the largest rally the capital, Seoul, had seen in a decade.

Police had initially banned Saturday's rally but organisers appealed to the Seoul Administrative Court, which overturned the order.

"A much more subdued atmosphere than it was here a few weeks ago. Many here are saying that's because of a notable lack in police presence. That has definitely defused any potential tension here," the Al Jazeera correspondent said.

"The fact that you can’t really see many police out on the streets means protesters hope the spotlight will be firmly on the issues that they want the government to address," she said.

While presiding over a government cabinet meeting on November 24, Park described the earlier demonstration as an attempt "to negate the rule of law and incapacitate the government", calling for a crackdown on those who incite "illegal, violent protests".

Critics say Park, despite an election promise to reach out to opponents for national unity, is increasingly reliant on strong-arm tactics used by her late father Park Chung-Hee, a general-turned-authoritarian leader who ruled the country for 18 years until he was assassinated in 1979.

Demonstrators carried signs and banners with slogans that included 'Park Geun-hye step down' [Lee Jin-man/AP]

First steps toward Native Hawaiian sovereignty get tripped up

KILAUEA, Hawaii — The results were supposed to be announced on the first day of December.

But the historic first election that could lead to sovereignty for Native Hawaiians didn’t even make it to the final day of voting without a legal challenge pulling it to a halt.

No one thought this was going to be easy.

Still stinging from the bitter rout of colonization, Native Hawaiians are the only indigenous people in the United States without their own political structure. The election in November was to be the first step in changing that, with nearly 90,000 Native Hawaiians certified by a state-sanctioned roll commission to vote on delegates for a constitutional convention in early 2016. It would be there, supporters hoped, that the elected delegates would then draft a document to guide the creation of a government by and for Native Hawaiians.

But on Nov. 27, three days before the end of the 30-day vote, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, acting alone, ordered officials not to count ballots, putting all those plans in limbo. His order was in response to an emergency application from two non-Hawaiians, who aren’t eligible to participate in the election, and four Hawaiians who argue that race-based voting is discriminatory under the 15th Amendment.

The hold on ballot counting prompted election organizers to extend the voting period for three weeks, through Dec. 21.

“It’s a victory for all Hawaiians — and all Americans — in its affirmation of racial equality,” said Keli’i Akina, the president of public policy think tank Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and one of the plaintiffs challenging the election. “Finally, it is a victory for the aloha spirit, which enables people of all backgrounds to live and work together in harmony.”

Kennedy’s order later gained majority support from the Supreme Court, continuing the prohibition on counting the ballots until there is a ruling on an appeal of U.S. District Court Judge Michael Seabright’s decision in October that allowed the election to proceed. He ruled that the election is private, and private elections are permitted to limit voter eligibility by race.

“This is an election for delegates to a private convention, among a community of indigenous people for purposes of exploring self-determination, that will not — and cannot — result in any federal, state or local laws or obligations by itself,” he wrote.

We’ve got a local boy in the White House. The timing will never be better.

Mauna Krea Trask

attorney for Kauai County

The nation-building process is being organized by Na’i Aupuni, a private nonprofit. (In Hawaiian, na’i means “the one who conquered,” and aupunimeans “created the kingdom.”)

Among some voters, there had been a sense of celebration for taking part in what they described as the first genuine Native Hawaiian election. Others boycotted the vote because it was organized with funds from the state of Hawaii and won a degree of federal endorsement when the Department of Interior urged Seabright to rule against any attempts to scuttle it. That the same government that had stolen their lands, outlawed their hula and purged their language from schools now appeared to be in support of a bid for their independence had some Native Hawaiians feeling suspicious.

Mauna Kea Trask, an attorney for Kauai County, said that those trying to thwart the election are letting emotion stall progress.

In Hawaii, indigenous Hawaiians are disproportionately plagued by homelessness, poor high school graduation rates, substance abuse and incarceration. The election, he said, was a timely chance to build a political mechanism to empower the Native Hawaiian people.

“They’re afraid to lose what they don’t have, and they don’t understand that with failure to act, we will lose what we do have,” Trask said of election opponents. “We’ve got a local boy in the White House. The timing will never be better.”

It’s like we’re having all the wrong conversations about this, and because of that it’s creating all these divisions.

Maija Calcagno

delegate candidate

Among the 200 Native Hawaiians competing for 40 delegate seats at the constitutional convention are activists, educators, politicians, police officers, fast-food workers and farmers. Half have college degrees. Some have criminal records. Most live in Hawaii, while others represent states such as California, Wisconsin and Florida. One contender resides in Sweden.

Binding them is a shared desire for a seat at the table when big questions about the political future of their people are discussed and maybe even answered.

The candidates’ collective campaign rhetoric, however, did little to tackle the art and intricacies of self-governance. The conversation focused instead on two sides of a fiery debate over which pathway to sovereignty Native Hawaiians should seek if they build their own political structure. A century’s worth of almost paralyzing anger born of the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom by the U.S. government has yielded little by way of consensus.

“It’s like we’re having all the wrong conversations about this, and because of that it’s creating all these divisions,” said Maija Calcagno, a delegate candidate from Vallejo, California.

A federally recognized Native government would allow Hawaiians to become citizens of their own nation while retaining American citizenship. This model became available in September, when the U.S. Department of Interior published a draft administrative rule outlining the process by which a Native Hawaiian nation, once formed, could seek a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States. There are 566 American Indian and Alaska Native tribes with a federally recognized form of self-governance, a special political status that indigenous Hawaiians have never been offered.

Those who decry federal recognition cite a deeply held distrust of the U.S. government that cannot so easily be swapped for an authentic desire to form a political partnership.

“I’m not an American, and I want people in the world to know that,” said Dennis “Bumpy” Kanahele, a well-known Hawaiian nationalist who’s running for delegacy.

Another, presumably longer, pathway to sovereignty is total independence. The ambitions of those who champion this route have been refueled by a 1993 joint resolution in which Congress formally apologized for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom, acknowledging that it was illegal and expressing a “deep regret to the Native Hawaiian people” as well as a sense of support for reconciliation. It would take an international court order to reinstate the Hawaiian kingdom, dissolve the state of Hawaii and do away with the U.S. government’s presence in the Hawaiian Islands.

Critics of total independence argue that loss of American citizenship would be debilitating for Native Hawaiians and note that it’s improbable to think that the U.S. government and its robust military, in which many Native Hawaiians serve, could be pushed off Hawaii’s eight strategically located islands.

“That’s a pie-in-the-sky desire,” said Robin Danner, a co-founder of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. “These are not people who want to help Hawaiians build houses. These are people who want to be Malcolm X.”

We’re not unified, we don’t have a consensus on anything, and it seems like we don’t have a plan. There is no one that the Hawaiian community is looking at that’s a leader. 

Paul Ishibashi

The political ramifications of a Native Hawaiian people so politically divided are not lost on Calcagno.

A federal recognition proponent, she was born into a family that fled Oahu for the U.S. mainland in the 1950s because it was difficult at the time for Native Hawaiian electricians, such as her grandfather, to get hired in the islands. Further in the future, she said, she would like to see the reorganization of a completely independent Hawaiian nation. But Calcagno, a law school student, said that’s something for which her people aren’t ready yet.

“Where would we be with a totally independent Hawaii right now?” she said. “There are no Hawaiians ready to run a government. If you’re so idealistic that you can’t accept anything but the most idealistic remedy, than you’re pretty much status quo.”

Walter Ritte, an independence activist who’s also at the forefront of Hawaii’s anti-GMO movement, publically scrubbed his name from the delegate candidacy four days before the start of the election, calling it a “disillusioned vision of sovereignty.”

Originally he planned to campaign for a delegate seat so he could advocate for total independence. He later decided that the process was being championed by an overwhelming majority of pro-federal-recognition candidates, leaving the total independence camp without a fair chance for an equal voice.

“This process has been and continues to be rigged to fit very specific agendas, and I cannot participate in a process that is not pono” Ritte said, using the Hawaiian word for “righteous.” “This is not the kind of thing that we want to build our nation on.”

Pua Ishibashi, a delegate candidate from Hawaii Island, lamented that there has been no comprehensive polling of Native Hawaiians, of whom there are an estimated half million, and no credible leadership to move the conversation forward.

The election seemed only to strengthen the glaring fissure dividing Native Hawaiians on the issues of what sovereignty should look like, how it should be achieved and who, if anyone, outside the Native community should have a hand in it.

“I think the biggest issue facing Hawaiians today are ourselves,” he said. “We’re not unified, we don’t have a consensus on anything, and it seems like we don’t have a plan. There is no one that the Hawaiian community is looking at that’s a leader. And we have no idea what sovereignty tastes like. We never experienced it like our ancestors. I think so much time has passed that maybe that’s part of the whole plan — that we forget.”

The Countries With The Highest Levels Of Poverty For Retirees [Infographic]

A recent report showed that 12.6 percent of people aged 65 and over in OECD countries are living in relative income poverty. That is defined as an income below half the national median equivalised household income. Older women are at greater risk of poverty than men with “the older old” (75 and older) falling on hard times more frequently than “the younger old” (aged 66-75).

Where is global retiree poverty most and least prevalent? According to the figures in the report, the poverty rate among over-65s is alarmingly high in South Korea, 50 percent. In Australia and the United States, income poverty among pensioners is also high, standing at 35.5 percent and 21.5 percent, respectively. By contrast, the Netherlands and France both have much lower rates of pensioner poverty. The report cites a pension system that has not fully matured as one of the reasons for the high rate of poverty among elderly South Koreans.