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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS