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BANGKOK — Observers are expressing concern that deliveries of aid under Thailand’s new humanitarian aid program for war-torn Myanmar will be misused because of the role of the junta-run Myanmar Red Cross – which is distinct from the International Committee of the Red Cross. U.N. agencies say fighting since the February 2021 coup has displaced some 2.4 million people and that a quarter of them are at risk of acute food insecurity. In a country of 54 million, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 18.6 million need aid. Myanmar’s military has been accused of "brazen" war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war against the resistance, and researchers estimate it has killed thousands of civilians. The 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries endorsed Thailand’s proposal for a "humanitarian corridor" to deliver aid to Myanmar through Thailand in January and the first convoy of 10 trucks,  bearing 4,000 aid packages of mostly food and water crossed into Myanmar on March 25 at the Thai border town of Mae Sot, where the Thai Red Cross handed the shipment over to its Myanmar counterpart. Thai officials said at the handover ceremony the packages would reach some 20,000 people displaced around three towns in eastern Myanmar’s Karen state and that the program could expand to other areas if the first delivery went well. However, aid groups and experts say relying on the military regime and affiliates, including the Myanmar Red Cross, to distribute aid to victims of the fighting puts the aid program at risk. "This organization is handpicked and instructed by the military regime, so it is not a good idea [for them] to hand over the assistance to ... the victims of the military regime," said Sann Aung, executive director of the New Myanmar Foundation, a charity on the Thai-Myanmar border that helps families that have fled the fighting. Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is spearheading the program, refused VOA’s requests for an interview. Its reliance on the Myanmar Red Cross to dispense the deliveries inside Myanmar has many aid experts worried. Adelina Kamal, a former head of ASEAN’s aid agency, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance, said any aid outfit run by Myanmar’s military regime could not be trusted to dispense the aid fairly. "In a conflict and crisis like Myanmar, how the aid is being given and who is behind the aid are often much more important than the aid itself. And if it is actually delivered by the one who initiated the crisis in the first place, there is a big probability that it is actually used as a tool in gaining popularity or ... showing that they’re trying to help the population that they’ve tried to kill," she said. Kamal and others fear the junta may also "weaponize" the aid by directing it to communities it favors and away from those it does not. Many if not most of the displaced have taken shelter in parts of the country under the control of the armed groups the junta is fighting. "When we talk about weaponization of aid, it can actually come in various forms ... for example blocking access for aid, which actually was done by the military after Cyclone Mocha hit Rakhine state, or selecting who actually should receive the aid or targeting how and where the aid should be actually provided," Kamal said. A month after Cyclone Mocha slammed into western Myanmar’s Rakhine state in May of last year, the U.N. said the regime abruptly cut off humanitarian access to the area, "crippling life-saving aid distributions to affected communities." Sann Aung agreed that Myanmar’s Red Cross lacks the independence needed to ensure the aid will reach those who need it most. "Humanitarian assistance ... must be sent to the targeted areas without bias, without preference to any organization or anybody. But the Burma Red Cross, they are biased, they have to follow the instructions of the military regime," he said, calling Myanmar by its former name. "So, we are very afraid that humanitarian assistance can be used, for example, [for] the people that are supporting the military regime or ... cronies," he added. Thailand has said ASEAN’s aid agency would monitor the deliveries to ensure the aid is doled out fairly. Kamal, though, who ran the agency for four years until 2021, said it is ill-equipped for the role by design. She said the agency is geared toward responding to natural disasters, not political crises like the one in Myanmar. Having ASEAN state officials on the agency’s governing board, including officials from Thailand and Myanmar’s junta, she said, means it is unlikely to be critical if significant problems arise. Thailand says its aims for the aid corridor include encouraging peace talks between the junta and resistance. Both sides have rejected any compromise to date, and the key role of the Myanmar Red Cross in the aid corridor is unlikely to turn the thinking of the resistance around, said Surachanee Sriyai, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute based in Thailand. "They’re saying this is for humanitarian purposes, for humanitarian assistance. But when you do that and working with the Myanmar Red Cross — which everybody knows by now that this is part of the junta-controlled apparatus — how are you going to facilitate trust from the ethnic groups or what you would now call the resistance ... forces?" she said. "That trust cannot be created and it cannot be forced by external actors," she added. Myanmar’s so-called National Unity Government, a shadow government mainly including political leaders ousted by the coup and aiming to oust the junta, said in a statement to VOA that they "truly appreciate" Thailand’s new aid corridor. However, lasting peace will come to Myanmar only when most of the population’s "fundamental grievances against military dictatorship are credibly addressed," the NUG’s Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs added. It did not suggest kicking the Myanmar Red Cross out of the aid corridor entirely but proposed a "parallel" plan involving the full cooperation of resistance groups as well to make sure the aid is distributed based strictly on need. Aid groups and experts have echoed the need to involve the NUG, armed resistance and nongovernment charities on both sides of the border to ensure the aid reaches the most desperate and vulnerable. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is on a five-day visit to China, where she expressed concern to Chinese officials Friday about state subsidies that fuel manufacturing overcapacity in industries such as electric vehicles, solar panels and semiconductors. U.S. officials and economists have warned that China's overcapacity — when its production ability significantly exceeds what is needed in markets — will further drive down prices and cost jobs, especially if China seeks to offload excess production through exports instead of domestic consumption. U.S. President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping Tuesday, said China's "unfair" trade policies and "non-market" practices harm the interests of American workers and families. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave reporters at a regular briefing Wednesday a rundown of the conversation the two leaders had on trade, according to Beijing. He said "the U.S. has adopted a string of measures to suppress China's trade and technology development and is adding more and more Chinese entities to its sanctions lists. This is not 'de-risking,' but creating risks." So, when is an industry at overcapacity? Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that for capital-intensive industries such as steel, oil refining and semiconductors, when capacity utilization is below 75% for an extended period of time, most observers would label that excess capacity. Hufbauer told VOA that China's massive government-stimulated and bank-financed investment has resulted in almost all the country's capital-intensive manufacturing industries having overcapacity. "If China does pursue a massive export 'solution,' that will hurt manufacturing firms in Japan, the E.U., Korea and other industrial countries. But low prices will be welcome in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia," he said. A report last week by the New York-based Rhodium Group, which researches the Chinese market, shows that the utilization rate of China's silicon wafer capacity dropped from 78% in 2019 to 57% in 2022. In 2022, China's lithium-ion battery production reached 1.9 times the domestic installation volume, showing that the problem of overcapacity in clean energy fields is emerging. China's exports of electric vehicles, solar cells and lithium batteries have increased even more significantly. Data shows that in 2023, China's electric vehicle export volume was seven times that of 2019, while its solar cell export volume in 2023 was five times that of 2018, an increase of 40% from 2022. The report notes that while temporary overcapacity may be harmless and a normal part of the market cycle, it becomes a problem when it is perpetuated by government intervention. The Rhodium Group's report says that China's National People's Congress in March focused on industrial policies that benefit high-tech industries, while there is little financial support for household consumption. "This policy mix will compound the growing imbalance between domestic supply and demand," says the report. "Systemic bias toward supporting producers rather than households or consumers allows Chinese firms to ramp up production despite low margins, without the fear of bankruptcy that constrains firms in market economies." Overcapacity a decade ago China's structural overcapacity problem is not a new phenomenon. Rhodium Group's report says the last time China had large overcapacity issues was from 2014 to 2016, a few years after the government launched a massive stimulus package in response to the global financial crisis that began in 2008. The stimulus package centered on infrastructure and real estate construction, triggering major capacity build-up in a range of associated industries. In 2014, as the demand for real estate and infrastructure construction weakened, there was obvious overcapacity in heavy industrial products such as steel and aluminum. "Ultimately, China's excess capacity is due to state interference in the market," said Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "Genuinely private participants can't sustain excess capacity for long because it causes losses. But state support for production of some goods and services, called "strategic" or something like that, enables companies to survive despite these losses." Scissors said China's overcapacity in the new energy sectors of electric vehicles, solar panels and batteries concerns the Biden administration as it wants to expand those sectors in the U.S. "The U.S. has raised concerns about Chinese overproduction for years," he told VOA. "What's changed is there is now emerging American industrial policy clashing with long-standing and widespread Chinese industrial policy." The Rhodium Group's report says China's surge in exports of new energy products over the past few years could be devastating for market-constrained producers in advanced economies such as the U.S. Beijing's policy planning will exacerbate the growing imbalance between domestic supply and demand, it reads, putting China on the road to trade confrontation with the rest of the world. Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on China Friday to address its industrial overcapacity, reform its trade practices and create a "healthy economic relationship" with the United States. "The United States seeks a healthy economic relationship with China that benefits both sides," Yellen said in remarks in the industrial southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. "But a healthy relationship must provide a level playing field for firms and workers in both countries." Yellen also met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and other high-level central bank officials Friday. During the meeting, Yellen told Chinese officials that their industrial overcapacity, particularly in green energy sectors, threaten American production of electric vehicles and solar panel parts. China has supported its solar panel and EV makers through subsidies, building production capacity far beyond the domestic market's demand and exporting its products globally. Although this production has massively cheapened prices for these green products — crucial in efforts to fight climate change — American and European governments worry that Chinese products will flood the market and put their own domestic production at risk. During a meeting Friday with Guangdong province Governor Wang Weizhong, Yellen said the U.S. and China must communicate regarding areas of disagreement, including green industrial policy. "This includes the issue of China's industrial overcapacity, which the United States and other countries are concerned can cause global spillovers," she said. China has sought to downplay these concerns, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin noting earlier this week that China's green production is a positive in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Wang said U.S. reluctance to export technology to China, a policy related to U.S. fears of industrial overcapacity, meddles with global supply and demand. "As for who is doing nonmarket manipulation, the fact is for everyone to see," he said. "The U.S. has not stopped taking measures to contain China's trade and technology. This is not 'de-risking,' rather, it is creating risks." Beyond addressing overcapacity, Yellen also expressed concerns about Chinese trade practices. Yellen said China has pursued "unfair economic practices, including imposing barriers to access for foreign firms and taking coercive actions against American companies." She urged Chinese officials to reform these policies. "I strongly believe that this doesn't only hurt these American firms," Yellen said in a speech at an event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Guangzhou. "Ending these unfair practices would benefit China by improving the business climate here." Yellen's visit to China, her second, marks the first visit by a senior U.S. official to China since November meetings between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both He and Yellen said the U.S. and China need to, in He's words, "properly respond to key concerns of the other side" to form a more cooperative economic relationship. Yellen said, "It also remains crucial for the two largest economies to seek progress on global challenges like climate change and debt distress in emerging markets in developing countries and to closely communicate on issues of concern such as overcapacity and national security-related economic actions." She added that U.S. efforts to push Chinese policies are geared toward reducing global risk. "This is not anti-China policy," she said. "It's an effort for us to mitigate the risks from the inevitable global economic dislocation that will result if China doesn't adjust its policies."

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Israel opens more aid routes and delivery access to Gaza, a day after U.S. President Joe Biden’s call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatening a shift in U.S. policy towards Israel unless it reduced harm to civilians in Gaza. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Edward P. Djerejian, Senior Fellow for the Harvard Kennedy Belford Center’s Middle East Initiative gives his take on what he believes needs to happen. The deaths of seven World Central Kitchen staffers have shaken the humanitarian community as groups now weigh the safety risks of their own workers. Janti Soeripto, President and CEO of Save the Children who just returned from Gaza talks about the serious impacts even a short pause in aid would mean for millions of starving civilians. Tensions heat up as Iran accuses Israel of carrying out an airstrike in Syria that killed some of its top military commanders and threatens to retaliate.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Following Thursday's meetings in Brussels, NATO's 32 member states are getting to work on an expanded role in providing military aid to Ukraine. At the session marking the 75th anniversary of the alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pledged NATO's support for Ukraine, now and for the long haul. Myroslava Gongadze visits a Ukrainian air base to see how military aid has already strengthened the country's air force. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych

Decisions by Florida’s high court this week opened the way for both tighter restrictions on abortion and the ability of Florida voters to decide this November whether to undo those restrictions. Reproductive rights are an important issue in this year’s presidential election. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports.

Afghan cancer patients say they are struggling to enter Pakistan for treatment after the placement of tighter restrictions on cross-border travel. From Peshawar, Pakistan, VOA’s Muska Safi has the story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. Camera: Muska Safi.

Israel has been quick to react to a Biden administration warning Thursday that it must protect Palestinian civilians and aid workers or lose the unconditional support of the United States. VOA's Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

washington — A Serbian journalist is being harassed and threatened after a fake video circulated online in which he appears to make an offhand comment praising a war criminal.  Dinko Gruhonjic, a media professor and a journalist for the local news website Autonomija, had participated in a regional festival in Dubrovnik, Croatia, last year.   Then last month, a manipulated video of that appearance circulated online. In it, Gruhonjic appears to say that he is pleased to share a name with Dinko Sakic — a commander imprisoned for his role overseeing a World War II concentration camp.   The Vienna-based International Press Institute, or IPI, says that Gruhonjic "has been the target of a public lynching campaign including threats of physical violence" since the doctored video was shared online.   Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic also commented on the video, Gruhonjic told VOA.   "Vucic addressed my case: in his own style, holding a knife in one hand and a flower in the other, claiming that no one should harm me. But, on the other hand, saying I should be ashamed of the statements I made. Which, in fact, I did not make," said Gruhonjic.   36 attacks this year The threats reflect a wider trend in Serbia. The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia or NUNS has documented 36 attacks on journalists so far this year. These include four physical attacks, one attack on property, 17 cases of journalists being pressured and 14 instances of verbal threats.   So far, three people have been arrested on suspicion of threatening Gruhonjic and a second journalist — Ana Lalic-Hegedis — who appeared at the same festival.   An arrest also was made in the case of Vojin Radovanovic, a journalist at the daily newspaper Danas, who received death threats via Instagram in 2023.   "When I received a death threat, in which it was said that I should be killed as an example, I realized that such people should be prosecuted as an example to others who think it is OK to make death threats to someone only because you don't like the way they work," Radovanovic told VOA.   The journalist, who covers politics and media issues, said authorities should take all threats seriously.   Just a few months after police arrested the person suspected of sending the death threat, a different individual made threats against Radovanovic's media outlet, saying it should be set on fire.   Radovanovic said the threats come from an "environment in which critically oriented journalists are considered as someone who gets in the way."  Neither the Serbian Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Internal Affairs nor the Prosecutor's Office for High-Tech Crime responded to VOA's requests for comment about the harassment of Gruhonjic and other journalists.   Threats cause suffering Serbia ranks among the Council of Europe member states with the highest number of attacks on journalists, according to an annual report by partner organizations to the Council of Europe's platform that promotes the protection of journalism and safety of journalists.   Referring to the wider trends across Europe, Teresa Ribeiro, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, told VOA, "Threats and attacks on journalists are not only causing suffering, destruction and in the worst case loss of life, they also lead to self-censorship and undermine the credibility of public authorities and public trust in the media."  Ribeiro said that media freedom is possible only in an environment where journalists are able to work without fear of reprisal.  "Without this, there can be no quality and independent journalism, nor can there be a lasting and well-functioning democracy and informed citizenry," said Ribeiro.   She added that OSCE states have an obligation to ensure media freedom. To ensure that it is upheld, she said, all attacks — both physical and online — must be "swiftly and effectively investigated and prosecuted."  Attila Mong, from the nonprofit the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, said a lack of accountability for attacks makes the situation worse.   "Despite some efforts, such as the establishment of working groups for the safety of journalists, it is evident that more needs to be done to comprehensively address these issues," Mong told VOA.   Mong cited a court decision in February to acquit four former secret police who had been convicted of the 1999 murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija. At the time, the CPJ called the acquittal a "huge blow to justice."  The rise in attacks is resulting in a decline in Serbia's ranking on media and human rights indexes. The country registered the biggest drop in the EU-Balkans region on the World Press Freedom Index last year. Serbia fell 12 places, to 91 out of 180 countries, where 1 shows the best media environment.   The watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the index, notes that Serbia has a solid legal framework but that journalists are under political pressure and face threats.  This article originated in VOA's Serbian service.