PHNOM PENH – Cambodia’s government has ramped up use of the courts to harass political activists and rights defenders ahead of elections, Amnesty International said Tuesday, warning the climate of fear was likely to get worse.　

Millions of Cambodians will head to the polls on Sunday for local elections across more than 1,600 communes — an early litmus test for next year’s crunch general elections.　

The impoverished Southeast Asian kingdom has been run for more than 30 years by strongman prime minister Hun Sen, one of the world’s longest serving leaders.　

But in 2013 his ruling party suffered a surprise setback when the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) made huge gains and nearly won.　

Since then the authorities have embarked on what Amnesty described as “a systematic campaign, using the criminal justice system to harass and intimidate” opponents.　

In a report titled “Courts of Injustice”, the group said at least 27 Cambodian human rights defenders and political activists are currently behind bars on trumped-up charges.　

Hundreds of others are subject to criminal proceedings “as part of a concerted attempt” to crush any public criticism.　

As a result a large proportion of the political opposition and human rights community “live under the threat of immediate imprisonment”, the report said.　

Champa Patel, Amnesty’s director in the region, said Hun Sen’s government has paid “much lip-service” to the judiciary’s independence.　

“But the evidence reveals a cynical manipulation of the criminal justice system to serve political goals and silence people whose views the government refuses to tolerate,” she said.　

Sunday’s election is a bellwether for opposition efforts to unseat Hun Sen after three decades.　

Sebastian Strangio, an expert on Cambodian politics, told AFP his party “risks losing control of a lower level of government that they have controlled since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979”.　

Hun Sen has historically eschewed campaigning himself.　

But last week he said he would attend a rally and parade on Friday — something analysts said indicated his nervousness.　

Hun Sen and his defenders say he has brought much needed stability and growth to Cambodia after decades of crippling civil war and genocide.　

Detractors say he and a coterie of political allies have amassed huge riches while presiding over an endemic culture of corruption.　

His popularity is especially low among the young who make up a huge chunk of Cambodia’s population and voted in droves for the opposition in 2013.　

In recent weeks Hun Sen has made increasingly shrill speeches, threatening “war” if his party loses.　

MARAWI, Philippines – Philippine authorities on Tuesday (May 30) urged Islamist militants occupying parts of a southern city to surrender for the sake of trapped civilians, as attack helicopters pounded the gunmen’s strongholds with rockets.

More than 100 people have been confirmed killed in the fighting, which began on Tuesday last week when gunmen waving black flags of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group rampaged through the mostly Muslim-populated city of Marawi.

President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the entire southern region of Mindanao, home to roughly 20 million people, in response to the crisis as he warned that local militant groups were uniting behind ISIS and becoming a major security threat.

But the militants, initially estimated by the defence chief to number just 100, have withstood eight days of intense air assaults and street-to-street combat, prompting the government’s surrender calls on Tuesday.

“We are giving those inside an opportunity to surrender. There is still a chance to lay down your arms,” military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said on DZBB radio.

“If you do that, it will be better so no one else will be dragged into this, no more buildings will be destroyed.”

Asked why the government had issued a surrender call, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said: “To lessen the damage on the ground, definitely so the civilians will be less affected”.

Up to 2,000 residents are trapped in areas held by the militants, according to the local government, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has voiced alarm that they will be caught in the bombing raids or crossfire.

The militants also took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage at the start of the crisis, and their fate remains unknown.

Helicopters fired rockets on a pocket of the city held by the militants throughout Tuesday morning, and black smoke rose from the buildings that were apparently hit, according to an AFP reporter in Marawi.

The Philippine military has said the gunmen are being backed by foreign militant fighters, including Malaysians, Indonesians and Singaporeans.

The violence began when dozens of gunmen went on the rampage in response to an attempt by security forces to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a veteran Filipino militant regarded as the local leader of ISIS.

Hapilon, a senior member of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang, is on the US government’s list of most-wanted terrorists.

He was being protected in Marawi by the local Maute group, which has pledged allegiance to ISIS.

More than 100 inmates of two Marawi jails escaped at the start of the conflict. The military said some of the escapees may have joined the fighting.

Philippine authorities last week seized more than 600 kg of methamphetamines in the largest such bust since China launched a crackdown on drug-smuggling in co-operation with the Southeast Asian nation, Chinese customs said on Monday.

China is the main source of methamphetamine consumed in the Philippines, which is caught in the throes of a brutal war on drugs waged by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Two people arrested in a May 12 raid on suspected smugglers told Chinese authorities they hid the drugs in five printing machines to smuggle them into the Philippines, customs officials in the coastal city of Xiamen said.

Tipped off by their Chinese counterparts, Philippine officials seized 604 kilograms (1,332 lb) of methamphetamine on May 26, Xiamen Customs said on its website.

“According to the Philippines side, this case is the largest drug trafficking bust made by the Philippines since China and the Philippines launched co-operation against cross-border drug smuggling,” the Xiamen officials said in the statement.

“It shows China’s determination to crack down on drug smuggling.”

The Philippines’ Bureau of Customs said in a statement issued last Saturday that it had acted on the intelligence from Chinese customs to seize the drugs in Valenzuela City, about 14 kilometres north of the country’s capital of Manila.

It valued the haul at 6.4 billion pesos (S$177.9 million).

“Our level of effective information-sharing with China Customs Cooperation sends a strong warning to all those involved in the drugs trade,” said Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon.

The two nations agreed during Duterte’s visit to China last October to strengthen co-operation in battling illicit drugs.

Duterte defended Beijing last year after a Reuters report quoted Philippine drug enforcement officials as saying China had done little over the years to staunch the flow of meth and its precursor chemicals.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s top security adviser has urged China to play a bigger role in restraining North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs, Japan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

National security adviser Shotaro Yachi made the remarks in a meeting near Tokyo with China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, on Monday, the same day that North Korea conducted the latest in a quick succession of missile tests.

Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday a new ballistic missile controlled by a precision guidance system had been tested and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had ordered the development of more powerful strategic weapons.

Yachi told Yang during five hours of discussion that North Korea’s actions had reached a new level of provocation.

“Japan and China need to work together to strongly urge North Korea to avoid further provocative actions and obey things like United Nations resolutions,” Yachi was quoted as telling Yang, urging China to take on a bigger role.

They also discussed regional issues of concern, with China’s foreign ministry saying in a statement that Yang told Japan it should view China’s development as an opportunity, not a threat, and that it should deal with issues like the South China Sea and Taiwan cautiously and keep its word.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, and Japan, the third-largest, have a difficult political history, with ties strained by the legacy of Japan’s World War Two aggression and conflicting claims over a group of uninhabited East China Sea islets.

Beijing is also suspicious about Tokyo’s stance on the disputed South China Sea and over self-ruled Taiwan, once a Japanese colony and claimed by China as its own.

Yang said relations were currently at an important juncture with both new opportunities and outstanding challenges, China’s Foreign Ministry said late on Monday.

He called on Japan to speak and act cautiously on the South China Sea and to play a constructive role as relevant countries in the region are making efforts to solve the issue properly.

However, the Chinese statement made no mention of North Korea.

MARAWI, PHILIPPINES – Four hungry chickens clawed at rubbish in a deserted street that smelt of corpses as military helicopters skimmed the rooftops firing rockets while the Philippines’ most beautiful Muslim city burned.　

Marawi, a lakeshore city of minarets that is the centre of culture for the mainly Catholic Philippines’ Muslim minority, is nearly empty after gunmen wielding black flags of the Islamic State (IS) group went on a rampage last week.　

Despite a relentless military campaign, an unknown number of gunmen remain held up in pockets of the city and holding hostages, while up to 2,000 residents are trapped.　

“These guys know how to fight. It looks like they have had some training,” Marawi city police chief Parson Asadil told AFP on Monday in grudging acknowledgement as he manned a checkpoint.　

At least one of his men had been killed and five are missing, he said.　

The official death toll is 19 civilians, 17 soldiers, three police and 65 militants.　

It is almost certain to rise.　

A police commando told reporters in Marawi he suspected the still off-limits public market was full of dead bodies.　

“The area smells bad,” said the commando, Hamid Balimbingan.　

“We still can’t penetrate the area and that’s why we’re using helicopter gunships on them (gunmen).”　

Those trapped are in danger of being hit by rockets or getting caught in the crossfire of the battles, while a lack of electricity, water, food and medical care could be just as deadly, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.　

“It really is a terrible situation,” ICRC’s deputy head of the Philippine delegation, Martin Thalmann, told AFP in Marawi. His team has been in contact with the trapped people via phone.　

“Sick people have already died because they couldn’t get out. There are elderly in there.”　

The military campaign involves dangerous house-to-house combat with the gunmen using sniper fire to deadly effect from key structures and buildings.　

Helicopters also fly regularly over the areas being held by the militants and fire rockets, even with civilians known to be in nearby buildings.　

 An empty city　

At a key city crossing, where local police chief Asadil’s unit took shelter from the sun on the side of buildings while manning a checkpoint on Monday, the streets were empty except for the four scrawny chickens.　

Shops nearby were boarded up, with glass facades riddled with bullet holes. A truck with a smashed windshield and blown-out tyres blocked the road a block away.　

Before the fighting, Marawi had a population of 200,000 people, more than 90 per cent of whom were Muslim.　

It is one of the few dominantly Islamic cities left in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, which is regarded as the ancestral homeland for Muslims who arrived in the country well before Spanish colonisers introduced Christianity from the 16th century.　

Since the fighting began neighbouring towns and cities have been swamped with fleeing Marawi residents, some having walked two days from mountain villages to skirt the fighting.　

At multiple military and police checkpoints outside of the city there were long lines while security forces cross-checked residents’ faces against the mug shots of known terror suspects printed on large posters.　

Some residents had nothing but the clothes on their backs as they walked into crowded evacuation centres.　

“We are angry at them,” mother-of-six Sunay Macudin, 28, told AFP, referring to the militants as she and her children and her elderly grandmother sat on the floor of a gymnasium-turned-emergency shelter in nearby Pantar town.　

“This would not have happened to us if the gunmen had not come to our village.”　

Another Muslim resident expressed bewilderment at the reported goals of the gunmen: imposing a brutal form of rule such as that seen by IS in Iraq and Syria, with anyone not sharing their ideology regarded as the enemy.　

“They are supposed to be part of our tribe, they are supposed to be our kin, but even we don’t understand what their cause is,” the man said.　

TOKYO – A Tokyo bathhouse is offering classes on topics ranging from comedy to gaming in hopes of luring younger bathers and reversing Japan’s dying tradition of communal baths.

During one recent session of the “Naked School” at the Hinodeyu bath house, nine men sat around the bath, listening to an expert on the ancient board game Go.

“I think young people would be interested and come back to communal baths if they knew these kind of classes are offered here,” Tadashi Manayama, a 37-year-old architect, said after class.

Yuichi Tamura, manager of the Hinodeyu, operated by his family since 1939, said many young people had never been to a communal bath because most homes have modern bathrooms.

“I wanted to give them a reason to visit us by offering an odd event like this naked school,” Tamura told Reuters Television.

In its heyday, more than 500 people bathed daily at Hinodeyu near Tokyo’s Asakusa district. Today that number is around 100, he said.

Traditional bathhouses, known as sento, once numbered more than 2,600 in Tokyo alone in the late 1960s, but since then have seen a gradual decline and prompted some bathhouses to come up with novel ideas to lure customers.

At Hinodeyu, the admission price of 460 yen (S$5.75) allows anyone to attend a class on the topic of the month. Bathers learned about traditional comedy in April, while the topic for March was the public bath industry.

Looking ahead to June, bathers will learn how to deal with the local problem of stray cats.

“It can be anything as long as you have something to teach people,” Hinodeyu’s website said.

SEOUL – North Korea confirmed its test-firing of a precision-guided ballistic missile was “successful”, the state-run news agency KCNA reported Tuesday, a day after the projectile landed in waters provocatively close to Japan.　

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un supervised the launch of the “new-type precision guided ballistic rocket” — the third missile test by the nuclear-armed regime in less than three weeks and carried out in defiance of UN sanctions warnings and US threats of possible military action.　

“The ballistic rocket flew toward the east sky where the day broke and correctly hit a planned target point… after flying over the middle shooting range,” the report said.　

South Korea’s military earlier said the Scud-type missile travelled eastward for 450 km (280 miles).

Japan said it believed it had fallen into its exclusive economic zone, extending 200 nautical miles from the coast.　

The missile test triggered swift condemnation from US President Donald Trump who said it showed “disrespect” for neighbouring China, the North’s sole major ally, which has sought to dampen tensions over Pyongyang’s weapons programme.　

The launch was aimed at testing a weapon “capable of making ultra-precision strike on the enemies’ objects at any area”, the North Korean report said.　

“It also verified ultra-precision guidance correctness in the re-entry section,” it said.　

“Whenever news of our valuable victory is broadcast… the Yankees would be very much worried about it and the gangsters of the south Korean puppet army would be dispirited more and more,” the report quoted Kim as saying.　

It added that the projectile was showcased for the first time last month as part of Pyongyang’s annual military parade to mark the 105th birth anniversary of the regime’s founder Kim Il-Sung.　

Following North Korea’s test-firing earlier this month of what analysts said was its longest-range rocket yet, the UN Security Council vowed to push all countries to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang.　

But China has made it clear that the push for talks — and not more sanctions — is its priority. On Monday it pleaded again for dialogue.　

“We hope that related parties can remain calm and restrained, ease the tension on the peninsula, and bring the peninsula issue into the right track of peaceful dialogue again,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.　

The US has said it is willing to enter into talks only if the North halts its missile and nuclear tests.　

Several rounds of UN sanctions have done little to stop the isolated regime from pushing ahead with its ambition to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental US.