Circling the Wagons

NEED TO KNOW

Circling the Wagons

AUSTRALIA

American, Australian, and British leaders caused a stir in 2021 when they announced they would share nuclear submarine technology, a move that most observers viewed as the US and the United Kingdom seeking to bolster Australia’s capacity to join any potential conflict against China in the Pacific Ocean.

A top American admiral recently warned, however, that American shipbuilders were failing to meet the agreement’s ambitious schedule, according to the Guardian. The US won’t have built one-and-a-half Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines by the end of the year, let alone hit their goal of building two a year, which are needed to cover US needs and send three to Australia in the 2030s.

Officials in all three nations should be beefing up the bureaucratic protocols to make sure shipbuilding and knowledge transfers are happening more fluidly, the National Interest said. Then again, added Asia Times, incoming US President Donald Trump might even scrap the so-called AUKUS agreement entirely.

This uncertainty might be one reason why Australia has also reached out closer to home to find allies. For example, the county inked a deal in August with countries of the Pacific Island Forum, namely Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga, to create an Australian-funded regional policing plan to improve training and create a multinational crisis reaction force.

The country already has a defense agreement with Japan – an alliance that would be even more powerful if India, another major democracy in the region, joined it, noted Aparna Pande, director of the Hudson Institute’s Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia, in GIS Reports.

Australia also recently signed a security agreement with Indonesia that just fell short of a military alliance, the Associated Press reported. Under the deal, the two countries will cooperate much more closely on maritime security, counterterrorism, and disaster aid. Australia is also partnering with the Philippines on South China Sea naval patrols, a major area of contention between China, the Philippines, and other countries, the South China Morning Post wrote.

China is pursuing the same kinds of agreement, incidentally. As the Economist pointed out, Chinese police have been operating in the capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, for two years and have similar agreements with other Pacific island nations.

The Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, called the competition between Australia and China in the Pacific a “permanent contest,” as both sides view the vast oceanic area as vital to their national security interests.

That race for the Pacific is playing out in ways beyond military and policing strategies.

For example, suspicions of Chinese snooping and espionage using social media – as an Australian Strategic Policy Institute alleged, according to Voice of America – might have helped convince Australian lawmakers to adopt a groundbreaking ban on social media for children under 16 in the country, too, as Fast Company explained.

What’s helping Australia is that almost all of the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) don’t want to explicitly align with the United States or even China, mainly because they are used to rejecting the “zero-sum game” and instead, hedging between great powers.

That makes countries like Australia, a “middle power” in the region, attractive, wrote World Politics Review. And that alone, say analysts, is helping the Aussies to circle the wagons.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

A Dangerous Tantrum

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law Tuesday, before being forced to reverse it by parliament and protesters hours later, in a dramatic turn of events that threatened the political and economic stability of one of Asia’s most powerful democracies, France24 reported.

In a televised address, Yoon told South Koreans that he needed to combat “anti-state,” “pro-North (Korean)” forces and accused the opposition-controlled parliament of paralyzing his administration.

He added that the move was essential in order for him to “rebuild and protect” the nation, accusing the opposition of plotting an insurgency and attempting to destroy the country’s democratic foundations.

“I will eliminate anti-state forces as quickly as possible and normalize the country,” he said, urging citizens to endure “some inconveniences.”

The declaration of martial law – the first since South Korea’s democratization in 1987 following a military dictatorship – bans all political activities, restricts freedom of the press, and grants military authorities the power to arrest violators without arrest warrants.

Yoon’s martial law commander, Army Gen. Park An-soo, announced in a decree that “all news media and publications are under the control of martial law command,” warning that those who spread “fake news” could be arrested without a warrant, the New York Times wrote.

Meanwhile, the military broke into parliament and suspended parliamentary activities, citing concerns over “social confusion,” and deployed troops to block lawmakers from entering the legislature.

At the same time, thousands of protesters gathered outside the legislature, chanting “End martial law” and demanding the president’s impeachment as clashes broke out between demonstrators and police. Television footage showed soldiers with rifles stationed near the assembly’s main building as helicopters hovered above.

The opposition Democratic Party, which holds a parliamentary majority, quickly condemned Yoon’s move as “illegal and unconstitutional.” Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung accused the president of betraying democracy, while Han Dong-hoon, head of Yoon’s own People Power Party, called the declaration “wrong” and vowed to resist it alongside citizens.

National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik convened an emergency late-night session three hours after the martial law declaration. Afterward, lawmakers present voted to lift the declaration, the BBC wrote. Police and military personnel were seen leaving the Assembly’s grounds after Woo called for their withdrawal.

South Korean law requires Yoon to lift martial law “without delay” if the assembly demands it. A few hours later, he agreed.

Yoon’s moves come amid rising political tensions in the politically divided country. He has struggled to push his agenda in the opposition-controlled legislature: The opposition has used its majority to block Yoon’s budget proposals for next year, preventing the passage of key spending bills. It has also pushed to impeach three top prosecutors, alleging bias in investigations against opposition leader Lee, a potential 2027 presidential candidate.

The opposition has also demanded independent investigations into scandals involving Yoon’s wife and high-ranking officials in his administration, which Yoon has dismissed as politically motivated.

Meanwhile, Yoon, who was elected in 2022, had seen his approval ratings fall below 20 percent in recent weeks, CNBC reported.

Critics described the declaration as a desperate power grab, drawing comparisons to South Korea’s authoritarian past. Meanwhile, analysts said the unprecedented declaration has thrown South Korea into political chaos, with many wondering about Yoon’s ability to survive politically, the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote.

For example, in a live YouTube broadcast, Lee declared that Yoon had betrayed the people and that, from this moment, he was no longer the president of the Republic of Korea.

Early Wednesday, Yoon faced growing calls for impeachment and a strike by the country’s largest labor union which said it would protest until the president steps down.

Just Saying ‘No’

ZIMBABWE

A Zimbabwean high court judge has ruled that a law prohibiting abortion access for girls under the age of 18 and women raped by their husbands is unconstitutional, a landmark ruling for the conservative and struggling country, the Associated Press reported.

High Court Judge Maxwell Takuva issued a ruling on Nov. 22, which was made public last week, saying that since Zimbabwe’s laws criminalize marital rape and sex with minors, victims should have the lawful right to abortion if they become pregnant.

“There is no doubt that it is torture, cruel, and degrading treatment for a child to carry another child, for a child to give birth to another child, or for a child to be forced to illegally abort because of cruel circumstances,” said Takuva.

Zimbabwe has had restrictive abortion laws that often lead women to seek out illegal abortions which in many cases turn fatal. Almost 80,000 unsafe abortions occur every year in the country of 15 million people, while thousands of others go unreported, the newswire wrote.

Legal abortions have previously been allowed in Zimbabwe only if the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother if there is a risk of a physical or mental birth defect, or in cases of unlawful sex such as incest.

In September, Zimbabwe criminalized sex with those under the age of 18, but the highly restrictive Termination of Pregnancy Act still denied abortion services to minors before the ruling. The current case, brought by a women’s rights group, has faced no governmental opposition but still needs to be approved by Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court to take effect as law.

Judge Takuva also said that providing access to safe abortions for teenage girls “is significant in light of the massive instances of teenage pregnancies in Zimbabwe, and consequently illegal teen abortions and teenage mortalities.”

About one in four females becomes pregnant between the ages of 10 and 19 in Zimbabwe due to the lax enforcement of laws protecting young girls, cultural and religious practices, and widespread poverty that makes it hard to access contraceptives and clinics.

In this deeply conservative country, one in three females is married before the age of 18. In cases of underage sex and unplanned pregnancies, families and officials try “to sweep the cases under the carpet or … force marriages on the minor,” police spokesman Paul Nyathi told the newswire.

Pay to Live

VIETNAM

A Vietnamese court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence for real-estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who was convicted of embezzling billions of dollars in one of the country’s largest financial scandals, but offered her the chance to live by repaying most of the stolen funds, the Washington Post reported.

Lan, 68, was found guilty of stealing $12 billion from Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which she secretly controlled by holding 91.5 percent of its shares through shell companies and associates.

From 2012 to 2022, she orchestrated fake loan applications that allowed her to siphon 93 percent of the bank’s total credit, causing tens of thousands of people who invested their savings in the institution to lose their money.

Prosecutors estimated the total damages at $27 billion, about six percent of Vietnam’s GDP in 2023, the Guardian added.

After her arrest in October 2022, a run on SCB forced Vietnam’s central bank to inject $24 billion of “special loans” into the bank to rescue it.

Lan carried out the scheme by installing trusted co-conspirators in top positions at SCB, including family members while bribing regulators and manipulating the bank’s internal systems.

She was tried alongside 85 co-defendants, among them SCB executives and government officials.

During her appeal, she offered 1,500 properties to reimburse losses, but the court ruled it could not assess their value. Judges rejected her appeal, citing the massive scale of her crimes and the grave consequences for the economy as reasons to uphold her death sentence.

Even so, Vietnamese law allows Lan to reduce her death sentence to life imprisonment if she repays at least three-quarters of the stolen funds.

In a separate trial in October, Lan was sentenced to life imprisonment for fraudulently issuing $1.2 billion in bonds, primarily to SCB customers.

Lan’s prosecution is part of Vietnam’s “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted thousands of high-profile figures in recent years.

Vietnam carried out at least 122 executions in 2023, primarily for drug-related offenses, although officials do not make all of the statistics on the use of capital punishment publicly available.

DISCOVERIES

Silky Silence

Noise – it’s everywhere, especially in cities. Traffic, trains, and neighbors often create an unwanted soundtrack to our lives.

Now, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions may have developed a simple solution to noise pollution – silk.

In a new study, the research team details how it has created a new noise-canceling silk fabric, barely thicker than a single human hair, that suppresses sound using vibrations, according to SciTech Daily.

It cancels noise because of a special fiber that vibrates when voltage is applied and cancels sound in two ways, according to the study. In the first, the fabric generates sound waves that interfere with, and cancel out, unwanted noise, similar to noise-canceling headphones. The second method, and the one that makes the product viable for larger spaces, involves blocking the vibrations that transmit sound.

The team built upon their previous work using piezoelectric fiber to create fabric microphones. For the silk fabric, the group applied an electrical signal to the piezoelectric fiber, causing it to vibrate and generate sound. The researchers use a silk fabric loudspeaker to emit sound waves that interfere with the unwanted sound waves, canceling out noise.

The researchers chose to use silk, a common material that is very tightly woven, so the product would be easy to use, for example as dividers in rooms or on walls. This is a different approach to the usual methods of suppressing sound, said Yoel Fink, a senior author of the paper.

“Noise is a lot easier to create than quiet,” he noted. “In fact, to keep noise out we dedicate a lot of space to thick walls,” adding that this new fabric “provides a new mechanism for creating quiet spaces.”

To cancel our noise in larger spaces, the researchers also said they could control the vibrations in the fiber to force the fabric to remain still. “If we can control those vibrations and stop them from happening, we can stop the noise that is generated, as well,” said the study’s lead author, Grace Yang.

“There are a lot of knobs we can turn to make this sound-suppressing fabric really effective,” she added. “We want to get people thinking about controlling structural vibrations to suppress sound. This is just the beginning.”

Correction: In last Thursday’s NEED TO KNOW section, we said in our “Straddling the World” item that Oman’s trade with Russia has increased by 60 percent from $84 million in 2014 to $400 million in 2023. In fact, the percentage increase was 376 percent. We apologize for the error.