Dateline Southeast Asia – January 19 to 25, 2021

Indonesia will rebuild homes and buildings ravaged by a powerful earthquake that struck Sulawesi island last week, President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday, January 19, as the death toll reached 90 and thousands more people were displaced.

The magnitude 6.2 earthquake caused significant damage to hundreds of homes, a mall, hospital, hotels and government buildings early on Friday, January 15, and has been followed by more than 39 aftershocks since.

“Soon the central government will rebuild, then for collapsed houses, the government will help for those that were heavily damaged,” Widodo said as he visited the city of Mamuju earlier on Tuesday.

The Indonesian government will give as much as 50 million rupiah ($3,558.72)* for the rebuilding of “heavily damaged” houses, while houses with “medium” and “minor” damages will given up to 25 million rupiah and 10 million rupiah respectively.

“We hope that with the help of the central government, the recovery of collapsed houses, economic recovery, recovery of service processes in government and the bureaucracy will also return to normal,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, a military official who is part of the country’s official search and rescue joint forces, said that nearly 10,000 people have been evacuated from Mamuju and the nearby city, Majene.

Many of them have fled to Parepare, a neighboring city more than 250km south of Mamuju and nearly 150km from Majene, the official said.

Straddling the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Indonesia is regularly hit by earthquakes. In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck Palu, in Sulawesi, killing thousands.

The country’s meteorology agency has warned of continued aftershocks, and the risk of extreme weather in coming weeks.

Indonesia has faced a string of disasters this month, including a plane crash on Jan. 9 that killed all 62 on board, a flash flood in South Kalimantan on Borneo island that killed at least 15, volcanic eruptions and a deadly landslide that killed 40 in Java.

$1 = 14,050.0000 rupiah

Malaysia on Tuesday, January 19, said it would extend lockdown restrictions across most of the country as it grappled with a rise in coronavirus infections.

Last week, capital Kuala Lumpur and 6 states went into a two-week lockdown. Essential sectors including manufacturing, plantations and construction were allowed to stay open, but a nationwide travel ban was implemented.

Security minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Tuesday said the lockdown will also be imposed on 6 other states from Friday, January 22, for two weeks. Only the eastern state of Sarawak will not see a full lockdown, though some restrictions are in place.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has said the lockdown measures were necessary as the healthcare system was at a breaking point.

The Southeast Asian country is also under emergency rule, which was imposed to deal with the pandemic, though the political opposition has said it is a move by Muhyiddin to cling to power amid a leadership challenge.

The total number of coronavirus infections in Malaysia stood at 165,371, including 619 deaths.

A Thai court on Tuesday, January 19, sentenced a 65-year-old woman to more than 43 years in jail for sharing online posts criticizing the royal family, her lawyer said, the country’s harshest ever sentence for insulting the monarchy.

Her sentence comes at a time of unprecedented youth-led demonstrations in which protest leaders have openly criticized the monarchy, risking prosecution under Thailand’s strict law known as lese majeste, which carries a 15-year penalty for each violation.

Anchan Preelert pled guilty to 29 separate violations of sharing and posting clips on YouTube and Facebook between 2014 and 2015, her lawyer, Pawinee Chumsri, told Reuters.

Anchan was initially sentenced to 87 years but because she had acknowledged her violations the court halved this, the lawyer said.

“This is the highest prison sentence ever in a lese majeste case,” said Pawinee, who is from the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group.

Anchan, who could not be reached for comment, can appeal the sentence at two higher courts, Pawinee said.

Amnesty International expressed dismay over what two Thai rights groups also said was the longest ever sentence in Thailand for insulting the monarchy.

Security officials raided Anchan’s house in January 2015, months after a civilian government was overthrown in a military coup.

Her case, which was initially brought before a military court, was transferred to a civilian court after a 2019 general election, which saw former junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha stay on as prime minister.

At least 169 people were charged with lese majeste in the aftermath of the 2014 coup, according to the lawyers’ rights group, with some cases taking years to process.

Authorities briefly stopped using the lese majeste law in 2018 but police started to invoke it again late last year after leaders of the protests, which drew tens of thousands of people, began openly criticizing the monarchy.

Since November, more than 40 youth activists have been charged under the law. None of those cases has been brought to trial.

On Monday, January 18, another man arrested in 2014 was sentenced to more than 4 years in jail after publishing articles and poems online that the court said contained falsehoods about the monarchy.

Indonesia reported a record daily increase of 308 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, January 19, taking the total deaths in the country to 26,590, data from the country’s health ministry showed.

The Southeast Asian nation also recorded 10,365 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally to 927,380.

Indonesia has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths from COVID-19 in Southeast Asia.

Thailand’s government defended its coronavirus vaccine strategy on Tuesday, January 19, against opposition criticism that it is too reliant on a company owned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

The attack by banned opposition politician Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit came as Thailand battles its biggest rise in infections and after months of youth-led protests that brought a rare challenge to the monarchy. Criticizing the royal family is illegal.

“These baseless and inaccurate accusations shouldn’t be linked to the work of the institution we revere and love,” said Nakorn Premsri, director of the National Vaccine Institute, referring to the monarchy.

He said that royally-owned Siam Bioscience had been the most obvious choice of many companies considered for technology transfer from pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca to make 200 million vaccine doses each year for Thailand and other nations.

Siam Bioscience is wholly owned by a subsidiary of the Crown Property Bureau, which manages tens of billions of dollars in investments under the king’s personal control.

Thailand has ordered 61 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which will be ready from June, as well as 2 million doses from China’s Sinovac, to be administered from next month.

Thanathorn made his comments on Facebook Live on Monday, January 18, at an event titled “Royal Vaccine: Who Benefits and Who Doesn’t?”

He made no accusations of impropriety against AstraZeneca but said Siam Bioscience lacked vaccine-making experience and the government was relying on it too heavily.

Siam Bioscience’s managing director, Songpon Deechongkit, declined to comment on the criticism.

“We want to focus on our responsibility to produce the vaccine in time, with quality, with the appropriate amount,” Songpon told Reuters.

AstraZeneca’s representative in Thailand could not be reached.

On Tuesday, a hashtag that translates as #royalvaccine trended on Twitter in Thailand with more than 300,000 posts.

Referring to vaccines at a briefing, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said people should take care in reporting the issue, in an apparent reference to the criticism.

“It’s all distorted and not factual at all. I will order prosecution for anything false that gets published, whether in media or social media,” he said.

Thailand has suffered less than most countries its size from the pandemic, but a second wave of infections began in December. It has had 12,594 cases and 70 deaths.