Category: Security

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

North Koreans working in clothing factories in China must be nearly flawless under new punitive regulations that dock workers’ pay if they produce too many defective garments, residents in China told Radio Free Asia.

The new rules seem to be a way for the cash-strapped North Korean government to justify keeping more of the dispatched workers’ hard earned salaries, a resident of the city of Donggang in China’s Liaoning province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

“Earlier this month, notices on production performance evaluations, work regulations, and wage reduction rules were posted in the form of posters at each North Korean company in Donggang,” he said. “Wages will be reduced if reprocessing is required due to a work mistake or if a defective product occurs.”

On the first and second instances, the team leaders will be punished, not the individual worker, the notice said, according to the resident.

“That leader’s wages will be docked first. If three out of 200 pieces of clothing produced … must be repaired, 50 Chinese yuan (US$7) will be deducted. The second occurrence will also incur a 50 Chinese yuan penalty,” he said. “But from the third incident, 30 points will be deducted per item from the work group’s performance rating.”

The work groups can earn 10 points per day for a full day of work, and their compensation is based on the number of points they can earn in a month, which is usually around 200, the resident explained. 

So losing 30 points is the same as missing out on three days of pay, all for just a single flawed item produced. If there are three or four flawed items made, the reduction would be around half of the work group’s monthly salary.

“The reason for the notice and reduction regulations is to collect even more foreign currency by reducing workers’ wages even more,” the resident said. “In addition, if a worker falls short of the daily production goal or delivers a defective product, there is a penalty that requires not only a reduction in wages, but also mandates that the worker cleans bathrooms.”

100,000 workers

The source said that there were about 100,000 North Korean workers in China, and Chinese companies calculate an average contract amount to be 2,000 to 2,500 yuan (US$280-350) per month per person and they pay the full amount to the North Korean companies. 

The lion’s share of this is forwarded to Pyongyang, however, and the workers themselves earn only a small fraction of it.

The 100,000 figure matches the estimate of workers in China from human rights groups, such as the U.S.-based Committee for Human Right in North Korea

Many North Korean workers in China put in on average 12 to 14 hours a day, including nights with only one day off each month, although it varies slightly from company to company.

A resident of Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River border from North Korea’s Sinuiju, told RFA on condition of anonymity that notices of the new rules have gone up in factories in that city as well.

“They say the year-end evaluation will be based on these rules,” he said. “A North Korean clothing company in Dandong posted the notice. … They are urging workers to increase their annual production.” 

The products made by the North Korean workers will not only be used locally,  the Dandong resident said. 

“This … is a clothing company that produces luxury clothing in China and exports extensively, not only domestically, but also to Europe through Russia,” he said. “However, these products are mostly made with the blood and sweat of North Korean workers.”

Under international sanctions meant to deprive Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs, all North Korean workers were supposed to have returned home by the end of 2019, and no new work visas were to be issued to North Korean citizens since then. 

But cash-strapped Pyongyang is still dispatching workers to both Russia and China by using loopholes, including by sending the workers on student visas.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.

The European Union on December 12 will unveil a plan to set aside profits generated from frozen Russian assets in the EU with the aim of eventually raising 15 billion euros ($16.1 billion) to benefit Ukraine, The Financial Times reported on December 11.

The report said the European Commission’s plan had previously been delayed after several EU members and the European Central Bank raised legal and financial concerns about it.

“It’s important to look at how we can use Russian immobilized assets and proceeds from those immobilized assets to support Ukraine,” Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told the newspaper.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

The chief of the Philippine armed forces was aboard a small wooden-hulled boat when, he said, a Chinese ship hit it during a series of weekend incidents that Manila was calling a “serious escalation” of tensions in disputed waters.

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said he was on the Unaizah Mae 1, one of three Philippine boats allegedly blasted by Chinese water cannon and piercing sounds during a resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre, a Philippine military outpost at Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal in the South China Sea.

“It was rammed. The Chinese coast guard were shadowing us from the start, and they got as close as 500 meters, 200 meters, then 100 meters,” Brawner told DZBB, a Tagalog-language radio station, on Monday.

“When dawn broke, we clearly saw that the Chinese militia [ship] tried to cut our path. Their maneuver was very dangerous.”

Also on Monday, Philippine officials presented images and videos of the incident.

“This is a serious escalation on the part of the agents of the People’s Republic of China,” Jonathan Malaya, spokesman for the National Security Council spokesman, said during a news conference.

In Beijing, meanwhile, a spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters that a Philippine boat had traveled “headlong” into a Chinese ship.

Brawner said he slept aboard the Unaizah Mae 1 and oversaw “legitimate radio challenges” to Chinese boats in the area, adding that two China Coast Guard ships and three Chinese maritime militia ships were following the small Philippine boat. About 40 Chinese ships in all were stationed in the waters in and around Ayungin Shoal, he said.

“They started shadowing us on Saturday and it continued at 4 a.m. the following day, and until we – the Unaizah Mae – reached BRP Sierra Madre at 8 a.m.,” he said.

Brawner said he was “very angry” about the harassment of the resupply mission.

“The Chinese were not told that I was aboard Unaizah Mae 1, so maybe that’s why it happened and they did not change tactics,” Brawner said during the radio interview.

“While their aggressive actions have increased, our directive to our troops is to practice maximum tolerance. That’s why we were just trying to evade them.”

The latest incident forced government officials to order a civilian “Christmas convoy” that had been set up to deliver holiday supplies to troops and fishermen in disputed waters to return to shore, according to ATIN ITO, the group organizing the effort.

The BRP Sierra Madre is a rusted World War II-era navy ship that Manila grounded deliberately to mark its territorial claim at Ayungin Shoal, a reef in the contested Spratly Islands that lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Manila also accused the Chinese coast guard of firing water cannon and painful sound blasts against boats that were ferrying supplies to Filipino fishermen near Scarborough Shoal, another disputed area, over the weekend.

Dueling protests

On Monday, Manila’s foreign affairs department said it had filed a formal protest to Beijing and summoned China’s envoy, while the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, announced that Beijing had lodged its own protest over the incident.

“[A] Philippine vessel went headlong towards Ren’ai Jiao’s lagoon and dangerously rammed a CCG ship on the scene,” Mao Ning said, using an acronym for the China Coast Guard. “This gravely violated China’s sovereignty and jeopardized the safety of the Chinese ships and personnel.”

Ren’ai Jiao is the Chinese name for Second Thomas Shoal.

“The root cause is that the Philippines has broken its promise and refused to tow away the illegally grounded warship at the reef and attempted to reinforce it on a large scale in an attempt to permanently occupy Ren’ai Jiao,” she said.

In response to the tensions in the waterway over the weekend, the United States, the European Union and Japan all issued statements condemning what they described as “dangerous actions” by the Chinese ships.

When a reporter asked her about a U.S. statement calling on China to stop “dangerous and destabilizing” actions in the South China Sea, Mao Ning said her nation would take the necessary steps to ensure territorial sovereignty.

“[T]he U.S. has been fanning disputes, misrepresenting facts, stoking confrontation and undermining regional peace and stability,” she said during the foreign ministry’s daily news briefing in Beijing.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

Gao Yaojie, a retired gynecologist and medical professor who fled China in August 2009 after blowing the whistle on the impact of tainted blood-selling schemes on rural communities devastated by AIDS, has died in New York. She was 95.

Columbia University professor Andrew J. Nathan, who had Gao’s legal power of attorney and managed some of her affairs, confirmed her death on Dec. 10 to the Associated Press.

In recent decades, official accounts of China’s AIDS epidemic have typically blamed sex between men as the biggest driver of transmission of the virus.

But Gao repeatedly and consistently spoke out about the large numbers of people who were getting infected through blood transfusions and donor schemes, and was targeted for harassment – including a prolonged period under house arrest.

In rural Henan in the 1990s, donors were just as much at risk as hospital patients, as blood-selling clinics in poverty-stricken rural areas would inject them with untreated plasma after each paid-for donation, leaving entire villages with the disease, along with a growing number of AIDS orphans.

Residents of Henan’s infamous “AIDS villages” said Gao would be remembered as a staunch advocate for their cause, which also sparked public demonstrations and campaigns for compensation. 

“I just learned that Dr. Gao Yaojie passed away in the United States,” a person with AIDS from Henan’s Wenlou village who gave only the surname Liu for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia.

“She did so much for people living with HIV in Henan,” she said. “Everyone is so sad that she passed away.”

Under house arrest

Gao refused to remain silent after the ruling Communist Party claimed to have cracked down on blood-selling, shuttering all government-run clinics that engaged in the practice, saying that it had merely been forced underground.

She was placed under house arrest and cut off from all communication with the outside world. She said at the time: “Living was worse than death for me because I was under so much pressure.”

Another AIDS patient who gave only the surname Xie said Gao was a hero to people in Henan’s AIDS villages, because her outspokenness eventually paid off – at least in some ways.

“When she was in Henan, she fought for us to get treatment, despite pressure from the government, and they finally agreed to provide free treatment for people infected with HIV,” Xie said. “That was all Dr. Gao’s doing.”

A friend of Gao who gave only the surname Chang for fear of reprisals said Gao had forced the Henan authorities to change their approach to rampant HIV infection in the province.

“She cared so much about people living with HIV, and she really persevered,” Chang said. “She cared about their rights and interests, and how they were being infringed, especially in public health. She was under a lot of pressure [for that from the authorities].”

‘The nation’s conscience’

In later life, Gao focused on helping and highlighting the plight of the AIDS orphans, healthy children whose parents had both died of AIDS contracted through blood-selling.

An activist who declined to be named said Gao had played a very important role in suppressing the AIDS epidemic in China.

“She was amazing – the nation’s conscience,” they said, declining to be named for fear of official reprisals.

Gao made her first trip to the United States in March 2007 to receive the Global Leadership Award, Women Changing Our World by the Vital Voices Global Partnership.

She spoke then of having written two books based on her work with AIDS patients and their families in impoverished rural areas where blood-selling was rife; those selling blood were usually infected with HIV when receiving untreated plasma infusions at clinics after selling their blood.

No publisher in China would publish the books, then titled “10 Years in AIDS Prevention” and “AIDS Orphans,” and those who had accepted it lost their jobs.

So Gao self-published “The Prevention of AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases” and distributed 300,000 copies under her own steam, using a US$20,000 Jonathan Mann Award – named for the AIDS expert and campaigner who died on Swissair Flight 111 in 1998.

In 2001, she was awarded the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights and named by Time Magazine as its Asian Heroine the year after. The following year, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in Manila, Philippines, but was denied permission to leave China to receive either of the two awards in person.

And in September 2007, the New York Academy of Sciences awarded her the Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award.

After moving to the United States, Gao struggled through years of ill-health to publish her 2008 autobiography, “The Soul of Gao Yaojie,” published by Ming Pao Publications Limited (Hong Kong). An English version, “The Soul of Gao Yaojie: A Memoir,” followed in November 2011.

On Feb. 7, 2015, Gao received the 2014 Liu Binyan Conscience Award for writers, at an award ceremony held at her New York apartment attended by fellow writers and judges.

But Gao also complained that her later years were overshadowed by medical fraudsters wanting to use her name and reputation to peddle quack AIDS remedies.

End-of-life statement

In November 2016, Gao issued an “end-of-life” statement, and spoke to RFA’s Mandarin Service about her experiences as an exile in New York.

“My name is Gao Yaojie. I hereby solemnly declare that when I die, I would like my body to be cremated, not buried in a grave,” she said. “I would like my ashes to be scattered in the Yellow River as soon as possible after my death, with no ceremony of any kind.”

“Through this declaration, I want to let friends around the world know that I do not want the achievements of my lifetime or my death to be used by others to achieve fame,” she said.

“I have been in the United States for eight years now, but I still don’t speak the language,” she said. “I can’t tell what kind of a person a white person or any other ethnicity is, but I can tell you that I have been visited by a lot of Chinese people, many of whom lied to me.”

“That’s why I don’t want a tomb, because I am worried that these lying people will try to make money out of it,” she said. “That’s why I can’t stay in America. I want to float eastwards down the Yellow River, and basically disappear from this world.”

In a 2009 interview with RFA Mandarin, Gao said China is on the “wrong path” because power struggles among the leadership are expressed as convulsive and violent political movements.

She said this had irreparably damaged the moral and ethical capacity of its citizens.

“Nobody has any internal moral compass to tell them what is right and what is wrong,” Gao said. “There are so many examples of this you would never get done talking about them. For example, fake medical doctors in China is one example that leaps out.

“Things started to go wrong for China in the 1950s and 1960s. You didn’t have this sort of thing before that. The most egregious example was that of the Cultural Revolution,” she said. “That’s when people learned how to operate in cliques … and now these cliques are even operating overseas.”

Yet Gao was “not alone” in her later years in New York, according to rights activist He Peirong.

“In later life, Gao Yaojie had people taking care of her,” He said. “Chinese students studying in New York would take turns caring for her and looking out for her.”

“She wasn’t lonely at all,” she said.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) recently blasted President Joe Biden’s administration for a proposal by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that it claims would “unjustly criminalize” American citizens for selling firearms and result in “serious confusion” for gun owners who buy and sell firearms.

NRA-ILA Executive Director Randy Kozuch told Fox News, “The Biden ATF’s proposed rule, ATF2022R-17, is just another attempt to demolish our Second Amendment rights, with the potential to unjustly criminalize everyday Americans for engaging in lawful firearm transactions.”

Kozuch added, “This rule blatantly disregards the recent NRA-backed Bruen ruling on the Second Amendment. It also creates serious confusion among lawful gun owners who buy and sell firearms legally for various purposes, from collecting to self-defense.”

Kozuch’s comments come in reaction to the ATF’s “Definition of ‘Engaged in the Business’ as a Dealer in Firearms proposal,” which is designated as ATF2022R-17. According to Fox News, the proposal would change the ATF’s current regulations and would implement part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that was passed and signed into law last year.

According to the ATF’s website, the proposal would change the definition of “dealer” to include anyone who “sells or offers for sale firearms, and also represents to potential buyers or otherwise demonstrates a willingness and ability to purchase and sell additional firearms.” The change would also involve the incorporation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act’s definition of a “dealer” earning a profit from the sale of firearms, which would include other forms of profit besides cash.

READ MORE: Blue state’s gun control law ruled unconstitutional

“If the Biden administration were truly committed to combating crime, they would focus on enforcing existing laws and reform their soft-on-crime policies, targeting actual criminals instead of law-abiding American gun owners,” Kozuch argued in his statement to Fox News.

According to Fox News, the ATF’s proposal was unveiled in August and provided a 90-day period for public comments that concluded on Dec. 7. The NRA, along with over 330,00 individuals and groups, posted public comments regarding the Biden administration’s proposal.

The NRA claimed that many of its members purchase and sell firearms for a variety of “lawful purposes.” The gun rights organization explained that the freedom of its members to buy and sell firearms would be “hindered” by the new rule, as it would “create serious confusion about what firearm transactions can be conducted without first acquiring an FFL.”

Leading a coalition of 26 state attorneys general in a letter to the ATF last week, Republican Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen also blasted the Biden administration’s proposal as a “shocking and unconstitutional attack” on the Second Amendment. 

“The proposed rule is unconstitutional, violating the Second Amendment by making any individual who sells a firearm without a federal license liable to civil, administrative, or even criminal penalties,” the Montana attorney general’s office stated in a press release.

The United States Air Force announced Monday that 15 Air National Guard officers and troops were punished as the result of classified information being leaked by a 21-year-old Air National Guard member earlier this year.

In a report to Congress, the Air Force noted that while the investigation found that 21-year-old Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira acted alone by allegedly disclosing hundreds of classified documents on social media and that there was no evidence superior officers were aware of his actions, the Air Force cited a “lack of supervision” as the reasoning behind the punishment of 15 Air National Guard officers and troops.

The Air Force’s report cited multiple indirect factors that led to classified information being leaked on social media, including “the failure of commanders to adequately inspect areas under their command, inconsistent guidance for reporting security incidents, inconsistent definitions of the ‘Need to Know’ concept, conflation of classified system access with the ‘Need to Know’ principle, inefficient and ineffective processes for administering disciplinary actions, lack of supervision/oversight of night shift operations, and a failure to provide security clearance field investigation results.”

According to Military.com, Teixeria worked in Massachusetts at the Otis Air National Guard Base before being arrested earlier this year for leaking classified information regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine and information about the United States and its allies on a gaming website. Teixeria was charged in April for the unauthorized retention, removal, and distribution of classified documents and national defense information.

READ MORE: Air Force warns troops to avoid pro-Trump ‘patriot’ rally: Report

According to Military.com, Teixeria is currently facing six counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information. After pleading “not guilty” in June, Teixeria is still waiting for his case to go to trial.

On Monday, Air Force Spokeswoman Ann Stefanek provided a statement to Military.com, explaining that starting on Sept. 7, “Air National Guard leaders initiated disciplinary and other administrative actions against 15 individuals, ranging in rank from E-5 to O-6, for dereliction in the performance of duties.”

The Air Force’s punishment for the 15 individuals cited in the investigation included measures such as the relieving of personnel from their positions and nonjudicial forms of punishment listed under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to Military.com.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall also provided a statement, saying, “Every airman and Guardian is entrusted with the solemn duty to safeguard our nation’s classified defense information. When there is a breach of that sacred trust, for any reason, we will act in accordance with our laws and policies to hold responsible individuals accountable.”

Ken Hudson Campbell — a beloved actor best known for playing Santa Claus in “Home Alone” — has undergone a desperately needed cancer surgery, paid for in part by a GoFundMe bolstered by famous donors like Steve Carell, Bob Odenkirk and Tim Meadows.

Campbell’s daughter, Michaela, confirmed doctors operated on her father Thursday morning, successfully removing the tumor growing in his mouth. She said the 10-hour surgery involved removing a large part of the actor’s jawbone.

Campbell was awake and in good spirits following the procedure, but the 61-year-old actor still has a long road ahead, she told TMZ on Saturday. He’s required to stay in intensive care for another few days and will then be transferred to regular inpatient hospital care for about another week.

After six or so more weeks of rehab, Campbell will be allowed to resume normal activity, his daughter added. Her father will also require reconstructive surgery, radiation and possibly chemo, which comes with a recovery period of at least six months.

The good news comes just days after a fundraising campaign, aimed at financing Campbell’s surgery, went viral online.

“On October 27th, 2023, Ken was diagnosed with cancer, a tumor had elusively grown on the bottom of his mouth and it began encroaching on his teeth,” his daughter wrote on GoFundMe.

She went on to explain that her father — a card-carrying member of the SAG-AFTRA union for more than three decades — lost his health insurance at the beginning of last year following the pandemic, leaving them unable to afford his hefty medical bills.

“Even though physical therapy and speech therapy are covered, we are anticipating huge out-of-pocket costs for caregivers/skilled nursing, insurance premiums, medical equipment, transportation, dental implants, dentures and who knows what else,” Michaela explained, noting that her family members are providing in every way they are able.

Carell shelled out $10,000 for the fundraiser, while “Big Bang Theory” creator Bill Prady donated $5,000. Actor Jeff Garlin, “SNL” alum Meadows, and “Better Call Saul” star Odenkirk also added to the pot, giving $1,000 each.

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© 2023 New York Daily News

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

A Vietnamese court on Monday sentenced a man to eight years in prison for his Facebook posts in a trial with no defense lawyers that lasted only two hours.

The An Giang People’s Court found Nguyen Hoang Nam, 41, a member of the Hoa Hao Buddhist community, guilty of “disseminating, propagandizing information, materials against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” in violation of Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, a law that is often criticized by rights activists to be a vaguely written tool that the government uses to silence dissent.

“It was only my husband and I in the courtroom. Witnesses did not come,” Nam’s wife Lam Thi Yen Trinh told RFA Vietnamese. “They were invited [by the court], but it costs hundreds of thousands of dong (tens of U.S. dollars) to travel to the court, and they couldn’t afford that.”

The indictment said Nam had used four Facebook accounts to share and disseminate images and video clips with content against the ruling Communist Party and the state, state media said.

He had live-streamed many times on his Facebook profiles to satirize and insult local authorities and regularly took photos and filmed local government employees who passed by his home, and posted the videos on social media for offense and defamation purposes, the indictment said.

During the trial, Nam denied the accusations, saying that he had only taken photos of those who often insulted and teased him, his wife said.

According to Trinh, her family signed a contract to hire an attorney from Ho Chi Minh City but the attorney was not allowed to not see Nam before the trial or participate in the trial due to a prohibition put in place by the head of the law firm. She did not know the name of the law firm and refused to disclose the attorney’s name.

Her husband pleaded innocent, disagreed with the sentence, and announced that he would make an appeal, she said.

Hoa Hoa sect

Vietnam’s government officially recognizes the Hoa Hao religion, which has some 2 million followers across the country, but imposes harsh controls on dissenting Hoa Hao groups, including the sect in An Giang province, that do not follow the state-sanctioned branch.

Rights groups say that authorities in An Giang routinely harass followers of the unapproved groups, prohibiting public readings of the Hoa Hao founder’s writings and discouraging worshipers from visiting Hoa Hao pagodas in An Giang and other provinces.

“The Vietnam government’s absurd idea of what constitutes a ‘crime’ is on full display in the outrageous eight year prison sentence given to Nguyen Hoang Nam simply because he posted opinions on Facebook that the government didn’t like,” Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of  Human Rights Watch’s Asian Division told RFA.

“Locking people away for years for peacefully expressing views is what petty dictatorships do, and shows just how the Vietnamese government falls pathetically short in meeting its obligations to respect human rights,” Robertson said.

Robertson also called on the Vietnamese government to immediately release Mr. Nguyen Hoang Nam and “end its campaign of harassment against Hoa Hao Buddhists who refuse to come under the state’s rigid control.”

The eight-year conviction of Nam for conducting ‘anti-state propaganda’ is outrageous, CIVICUS Monitor’s Asia-Pacific researcher Josef Benedict told RFA via text messages. CIVICUS Monitor is a research tool that provides data on civic freedoms in 196 countries.

“It highlights the severe punishment faced by activists in Vietnam and the relentless efforts by the authorities to silence individuals who have critical or dissenting views,” said Benedict. “This is a clear violation of the country’s obligations under international human rights law. CIVICUS calls for his immediate and unconditional release.”

Benedict called on Vietnam to stop using vague laws like Article 117 to silence online criticism and live up to its status as a member of the UN Human Rights Council.

“Such actions are the reason why the CIVICUS Monitor continues to rate Vietnam’s civic space rating as ‘closed’, the worst rating a country can have.”

Nam was previously sentenced to a four-year jail term in 2018 for “disrupting public order” and “resisting officers on official duty” along with five other Hoa Hao Buddhists.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

Heavy shelling killed a child and injured five others in western Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia on Monday. 

An artillery blast landed in a home in Rakhine state’s Minbya township on Sunday night where five children were playing together. A thirteen-year-old named Sabel died as a result. Four other children were injured, along with a woman who was in the house, Minbya residents said. 

Sabel died instantly, and the injured victims were sent to the hospital, said a resident of Okkar Pyan neighborhood, where the attack occurred. 

“A heavy weapon dropped on Soe Tint’s house. His daughter was hit in the head and died on the spot,” he told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “Children playing together were also injured, and were sent to the hospital as an emergency case.”

Locals claimed the shelling was done by the junta’s Minbya-based battalion 380, but RFA has not been able to independently verify this. 

Attacks in Minbya city and surrounding villages have resulted in a total of one death and eight injuries on Sunday, according to the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s statement.The alliance is composed of four ethnic armed resistance groups, including the Arakan Army. 

In addition to one death and five injuries in Minbya, a drone attack by junta forces injured a 12-year-old child and damaged a house in Sittwe township’s War Bo village on Sunday, the statement said. Two heavy explosives dropped by the junta in Ponnagyun township’s Pa Day Thar village destroyed houses and injured residents the same day, it added.

RFA called Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein to learn more about civilian casualties, but he did not respond by the time of publication. 

Since fighting resumed in Rakhine state on Nov. 13, clashes and attacks have killed 19 civilians and injured 60 others, according to data compiled by RFA. 

The United States Space Force is expected to launch its X-37B unmanned drone Monday night after weather issues caused the Space Force to delay its original launch plan.

“Now targeting Monday, December 11 for Falcon Heavy’s launch of the USSF-52 mission, with weather conditions forecasted to improve to 70% favorable for liftoff on Monday night,” SpaceX posted on X, formerly Twitter. “The team will use the time to complete additional pre-launch checkouts.”

According to The New York Post, the Space Force’s mysterious X-37B drone was initially expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Sunday night; however, the launch was postponed due to intense storms on the East Coast.

Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron provided a report that estimated only a 40-percent chance for a successful launch of the X-37B on Sunday. By waiting to launch Monday Night, SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk and first secured the $130 million contract to launch the military’s drone in 2018, estimated a 70-percent chance of a successful launch, according to The New York Post.

SpaceX is currently scheduled to launch the X-37B into space with the Falcon Heavy rocket at 8:14 p.m. from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday.

“We are excited to expand the envelope of the reusable X-37B’s capabilities, using the flight-proven service module and Falcon Heavy rocket to fly multiple cutting-edge experiments for the Department of the Air Force and its partners,” Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, program director of the X-37B, stated.

READ MORE: Pentagon may let AI drones kill humans autonomously: Report

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman described the upcoming experiments of the X-37B as “groundbreaking.”

“The X37B continues to equip the United States with the knowledge to enhance current and future space operations,” Saltzman said. “X-37B Mission 7 demonstrates the USSF’s commitment to innovation and defining the art-of-the-possible in the space domain.”

The U.S. military noted that the tests conducted by the unmanned drone will be performed with “future space domain awareness technologies. According to The New York Post, some experts believe that the military’s statements regarding the X-37B could mean that the drone will be used to track satellites launched by U.S. adversaries.

In a previous statement to Congress, Saltzman explained, “Our space systems are threatened by a variety of growing anti-satellite capabilities, and the joint force is threatened by increasingly sophisticated adversary space-based systems intended to target the joint force.”

The Space Force also noted that NASA will conduct an experiment with the X-37B to “expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration space flight.” The experiment is expected to build upon previous experiments and is expected to help with future space missions.

According to The Washington Post, while the X-37B is expected to launch further into space than it has on previous missions, the Space Force has not yet provided an explanation regarding the change.

Brian Weeden, director of program planning for Secure World Foundation, told The Washington Post, “The US government is in this weird place where they brag publicly about how amazing it is and cutting-edge, but will not provide any information about it.”