MYANMAR
Junta destroying country: UN
The junta appears to be “trying to destroy a country it cannot control,” the UN special rapporteur to the country said yesterday. Clashes between an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups and the military have shredded a Beijing-brokered truce forged in January. The ceasefire had briefly halted widespread fighting in the northern part of the nation since a military coup ended democratic rule in 2021. “The junta is on its heels, it’s losing troops, it’s losing military facilities, it is literally losing ground,” UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews said during a briefing to the national security body of Thailand. “It almost appears as if the junta is trying to destroy a country that it cannot control.” The military’s response to its losses has been to attack civilians, he said, adding that there had been a substantial increase in the number of attacks on schools, hospitals and monasteries in the past six months. “The stakes are very, very high,” he added.
SOUTH SUDAN
Finance minister fired
President Salva Kiir has sacked the finance minister, who was just four months into the job, state-owned television reported on Wednesday, the sixth replacement in the post since 2020. Kiir gave no reason for firing Awow Daniel Chuong, who was appointed in the middle of March, the report said. Economist Marial Deng has been tapped to replace him as finance minister, it said. The nation’s economy has been under pressure in recent years amid communal violence, with crude oil export revenue having dwindled since a 2013-2018 civil war and more recently export disruptions due to war in neighboring Sudan.
UNITED STATES
Chinese boats spotted
A Coast Guard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea came across several Chinese military ships in international waters, but within the nation’s exclusive economic zone, officials said on Wednesday. The crew detected three vessels about 200km north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, the Coast Guard said in a statement. A short time later, a helicopter aircrew from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak spotted a fourth ship about 135km north of the Amukta Pass. All four of the Chinese vessels were “transiting in international waters, but still inside the US exclusive economic zone,” which extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from the shoreline, the statement said. “The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” said Rear Admiral Megan Dean, 17th Coast Guard District commander. “We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to US interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”
UNITED STATES
Bell license plate unveiled
A new state license plate design refers to Pennsylvania’s critical role in establishing the nation’s independence from England and features the phrase “Let Freedom Ring.” The red, white and blue plate design announced this week includes an image of Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell. “Let Freedom Ring” is a phrase in the early 19th-century song My Country, ’Tis of Thee. The Liberty Bell, inscribed with Leviticus 25:10, a Bible verse exhorting people to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” was in use in Philadelphia before the Revolutionary War. It became a rallying point for those fighting to abolish slavery and for supporters of giving women the right to vote and of civil rights.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
‘NO WORKABLE SOLUTION’: An official said Pakistan engaged in the spirit of peace, but Kabul continued its ‘unabated support to terrorists opposed to Pakistan’ Pakistan yesterday said that negotiations for a lasting truce with Afghanistan had “failed to bring about a workable solution,” warning that it would take steps to protect its people. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been holding negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, aimed at securing peace after the South Asian neighbors’ deadliest border clashes in years. The violence, which killed more than 70 people and wounded hundreds, erupted following explosions in Kabul on Oct. 9 that the Taliban authorities blamed on Pakistan. “Regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances, kept deviating from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses,” Pakistani Minister of
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
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