VOA Asia Weekly: Island May House Rohingya Refugees in Indonesia

Pacific island Nauru switches diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China. Prosecution calls first witness in national security trial of Hong Kong media executive. North Korea says it tested solid-fuel missile tipped with hypersonic weapon. Brunei royal wedding.

What is the top news of the week from Asia, the U.S., and around the world? VOA Asia Weekly rounds up the week’s major headlines, along with expert analysis, all in five minutes, produced from Washington, DC.

Rohingya refugees seek housing on an Indonesian island that once housed Vietnamese refugees.

Welcome to VOA Asia Weekly. I'm Chris Casquejo in Washington. That story is coming up, but first, making headlines:

Taiwan lost another diplomatic ally to China after the Pacific island of Nauru cut ties with Taiwan to establish diplomatic relations with China. China offered Nauru 100 million dollars in annual economic assistance to switch diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing. This move comes days after the self-governing island of Taiwan elected William Lai, the candidate of ruling Democratic Progressive Party, as president.

“We recommend that President Marcos read more books to correctly understand the ins and outs of the Taiwan issue and draw correct conclusions.”

China warned the Philippines not to play with fire on the Taiwan issue. In a post on “X,” President Ferdinand Marcos congratulated William Lai on his election last Saturday and anticipated “close collaboration” with him. China asserts that President Marcos’s comment violates the One China principle and interferes with China’s internal affairs.

The first prosecution witness testified in the Hong Kong National Security case against media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Cheung Kim-hung said on Wednesday that Lai had instructed him to call for people to join protests in 2019. Cheung was one of 6 Apple News executives who pleaded guilty in November 2022 to colluding with Lai to request foreign entities “to impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities” against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments between July 2020 and June 2021. Cheung and the other 5 face a maximum sentence of life in prison but are expected to receive lesser penalties because of their guilty pleas.

North Korea launched a test of a solid-fuel missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead Sunday, marking the North’s first test launch of the year. South Korea and Japan detected the ballistic missile launch from a site near North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang. The North Korean Central News Agency stated that the test was successful but did not provide details.

The U.N. estimates more than a million Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in successive waves. And while most ended up in neighboring Bangladesh, some have taken boats to Indonesia where authorities are now considering using an island once used for resettlement of Vietnamese refugees. VOA's Ahadian Utama has more.

Full script here: https://www.voanews.com/a/7445936.html

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I’m Chris Casquejo.

Finally, love is in the air.

Brunei held a royal banquet ceremony on Monday to celebrate the wedding of Prince Abdul Mateen, son of the world's longest-reigning monarch Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

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