Thai soldiers on alert as Myanmar border clashes enter second day

Thai soldiers on alert as Myanmar border clashes enter second day
Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers collect weapons after they captured an army outpost, near Myawaddy, Karen state, Myanmar, Mar. 11, 2024. (AP Photo)
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Updated 10 April 2024
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Thai soldiers on alert as Myanmar border clashes enter second day

Thai soldiers on alert as Myanmar border clashes enter second day
  • Thai soldiers took up positions underneath the friendship bridge linking Mae Sot with Myanmar trade hub Myawaddy
  • Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers said they had seized a military base around 10 km west of Myawaddy

MAE SOT, Thailand: Thai armored cars patrolled the town of Mae Sot Wednesday as the deep boom of artillery thundered across the border in Myanmar, where the junta and an ethnic armed group fought for a second day near a vital trade hub.
Hundreds queued to enter Thailand at the immigration checkpoint in Mae Sot, many fleeing the newest round of fighting to test the junta’s hold on power.
Thai soldiers took up positions underneath the friendship bridge linking the town with Myanmar trade hub Myawaddy, the silhouettes of their counterparts from the Myanmar army visible across the sparse 200 meters (220 yards) of dirt and dried river dividing the nations.
Above the soldiers, hundreds walked across the friendship bridge and into the safety of the kingdom.
“I’m scared, so I decided to cross to the Thai side,” Khu, 49, from Myawaddy, told AFP as she clutched her pet dog to her chest.
She said she had obtained a visa to remain in Thailand for seven days but did not want to return until the fighting stopped.
A Thai soldier, beginning his watch and who declined to give his name, said the sounds of conflict were the most intense he had heard in fifteen years on the border with Myanmar’s conflict-riven Karen state.
Jafal Sweardik, 14, had just crossed over with his family from near Myawaddy, where he said the sounds of artillery and gunfire had cast a shadow over Eid Al-Fitr festivities at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
“It was horrible, very scary,” he told AFP, adding he was looking forward to being reunited with family on the Thai side to share an Eid feast of curry and rice.
The number of people passing Thai immigration from Myanmar had increased to around 4,000 per day in recent days, an immigration official told AFP, up from the usual number of around 1,900.
He said authorities were reinforcing the number of immigration officials to address the possibility that arrivals would rise further in the coming days.
The clashes come with the junta reeling from a series of defeats in the north and west of Myanmar, leading some of its opponents to believe it can one day be toppled.
Fighters from the Karen National Union (KNU) said Saturday they had seized a military base around 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of Myawaddy, and that more than 600 soldiers, police, and their families had surrendered.
KNU fighters had clashed again with the military around Myawaddy on Wednesday, a KNU spokesman Padoh Saw Taw Nee confirmed to AFP.
The junta has not responded to requests for comment on the KNU claim of the surrenders at the Thingannyinaung base.
More than $1.1 billion worth of trade passed through Myawaddy in the 12 months to April, according to the junta’s commerce ministry — a vital source of revenue for the cash-strapped military.
Residents told AFP fighting started around Myawaddy on Tuesday, sending people fleeing across the border, but that KNU fighters did not appear to have entered the town.
“There was fighting the whole of last night and in the morning as well,” a resident told AFP on Wednesday, requesting anonymity for security reasons, as they hid in a basement.
“We can hear artillery sounds and explosions from our place. Planes are flying over,” they said.
“My mother and other siblings fled to Mae Sot this morning. I’m now guarding our house with my uncle.”
A truck driver on the road to Myawaddy in Myanmar said he had heard planes flying and the sound of artillery fire on Wednesday.
He said other drivers told him that authorities in the town had blocked traffic from entering from the Myanmar side.
In neighboring Thailand, one Mae Sot resident told AFP they saw eight Thai military vehicles heading toward the border on Tuesday night.
“Many people have entered Mae Sot from the other side [Myanmar],” they said.
“I saw many online posts looking for a place to stay.”
Thailand shares a 2,400-kilometer (1,490-mile) border with Myanmar, with the clashes coming as the Thai foreign minister said Tuesday the kingdom was prepared to accept 100,000 people fleeing.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and high-level Thai officials met earlier to discuss the border issue.


UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser
Updated 59 min 30 sec ago
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UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser
  • Powell, who was chief of staff to former PM Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, was an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process
  • He faced criticism for his part in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq

LONDON: The UK’s Labour government has appointed Jonathan Powell, an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process, as its new national security adviser.

Powell, who served as chief of staff to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for a decade between 1997 and 2007, was deeply involved in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

In 2014, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him the UK’s special envoy to Libya, in an attempt to promote dialogue between rival factions embroiled in the nation’s civil war.

Many political figures in the UK welcomed Powell’s latest appointment at a time of escalating international conflicts. Some expressed hopes that he will be able to help British authorities forge a positive relationship with Donald Trump when he takes over as US president in January.

However, Powell faced criticism for his role in the UK government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq two decades ago, and for later promoting the need to engage in dialogue with extremist groups. In 2014, at the height of Daesh’s bloody occupation of large swaths of Iraq and Syria, he argued that UK authorities should open channels of communication with them.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Powell’s experience of negotiating the Northern Ireland peace agreement and his other work related to some of the world’s most complex conflicts make him “uniquely qualified to advise the government on tackling the challenges ahead, and engage with counterparts across the globe to protect and advance UK interests.”

Powell said he was honored to be given the role at a time when “national security, international relations and domestic policies are so interconnected.”


Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says

Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says
Updated 09 November 2024
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Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says

Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says
  • Trump's transition team have yet to sign agreements required by the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and to limit and disclose private donations
  • The delay is holding up the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for potentially hundreds of Trump administration national security appointees

WASHINGTON: A good-governance group is warning of severe consequences if President-elect Donald Trump continues to steer clear of formal transition planning with the Biden administration — inaction that it says is already limiting the federal government’s ability to provide security clearances and briefings to the incoming administration.
Without the planning, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, “it would not be possible” to “be ready to govern on day one.”
The president-elect’s transition is being led by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. They said last month that they expected to sign agreements beginning the formal transition process with the Biden White House and the General Services Administration, which acts essentially as the federal government’s landlord.
But those agreements are still unsigned, and the pressure is beginning to mount.
The delay is holding up the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for potentially hundreds of Trump administration national security appointees. That could limit the staff who could work on sensitive information by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
It also means Trump appointees can’t yet access federal facilities, documents and personnel to prepare for taking office.
The agreements are required by the Presidential Transition Act, which was enacted in 2022. They mandate that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and to limit and disclose private donations.
In that act, Congress set deadlines of Sept. 1 for the GSA agreement and Oct. 1 for the White House agreement, in an effort to ensure that incoming administrations are prepared to govern when they enter office. Both deadlines have long since come and gone.
Stier, whose organization works with candidates and incumbents on transitions, said on a call with reporters on Friday that a new administration “walks in with the responsibility of taking over the most complex operation on the planet.”
“In order to do that effectively, they absolutely need to have done a lot of prework,” he said, adding that Trump’s team “has approached this in a, frankly, different way than any other prior transition has.”
“They have, up until now, walked past all of the tradition and, we believe, vital agreements with the federal government,” Stier said.
In a statement this week, Lutnick and McMahon said Trump was “selecting personnel to serve our nation under his leadership and enact policies that make the life of Americans affordable, safe, and secure.” They didn’t mention signing agreements to begin the transition.
A person familiar with the matter said that the congressionally mandated ethics disclosures and contribution limits were factors in the hesitance to sign the agreements.
Trump transition spokesperson Brian Hughes said Friday that the team’s “lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”
“We will update you once a decision is made,” Hughes said.
The Trump team’s reluctance has persisted despite Biden’s White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, reaching out to Lutnick and McMahon to reiterate the important role the agreements with the Biden administration and GSA play in beginning a presidential transition.
“We’re here to assist. We want to have a peaceful transition of power,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “We want to make sure they have what they need.”
The unorthodox approach to the presidential transition process recalls the period immediately after Trump’s Election Day victory in 2016. Days later, the president-elect fired the head of his transition team, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and tossed out a transition playbook he’d been compiling.
But Stier said that, even then, Trump’s team had signed the initial agreements that allowed the transition to get started — something that hasn’t happened this time.
“The story’s not finished. But they’re late,” he said. “And even if they manage to get these agreements in now, they’re late in getting those done.”


50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals

50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals
Updated 53 min 14 sec ago
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50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals

50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals
  • The statement also condemned nations which “knowingly” allow those responsible for ransomware attacks to operate from

UN: The World Health Organization and some 50 countries issued a warning Friday at the United Nations about the rise of ransomware attacks against hospitals, with the United States specifically blaming Russia.
Ransomware is a type of digital blackmail in which hackers encrypt the data of victims — individuals, companies or institutions — and demand money as a “ransom” in order to restore it.
Such attacks on hospitals “can be issues of life and death,” according to WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who addressed the UN Security Council during a meeting Friday called by the United States.
“Surveys have shown that attacks on the health care sector have increased in both scale and frequency,” Ghebreyesus said, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation to combat them.
“Cybercrime, including ransomware, poses a serious threat to international security,” he added, calling on the Security Council to consider it as such.
A joint statement co-signed by over 50 countries — including South Korea, Ukraine, Japan, Argentina, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — offered a similar warning.
“These attacks pose direct threats to public safety and endanger human lives by delaying critical health care services, cause significant economic harm, and can pose a threat to international peace and security,” read the statement, shared by US Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger.
The statement also condemned nations which “knowingly” allow those responsible for ransomware attacks to operate from.
At the meeting, Neuberger directly called out Moscow, saying: “Some states — most notably Russia — continue to allow ransomware actors to operate from their territory with impunity.”
France and South Korea also pointed the finger at North Korea.
Russia defended itself by claiming the Security Council was not the appropriate forum to address cybercrime.
“We believe that today’s meeting can hardly be deemed a reasonable use of the Council’s time and resources,” said Russian ambassador Vassili Nebenzia.
“If our Western colleagues wish to discuss the security of health care facilities,” he continued, “they should agree in the Security Council upon specific steps to stop the horrific... attacks by Israel on hospitals in the Gaza Strip.”


China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws
Updated 09 November 2024
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China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws
  • Laws aimed at reinforcing Philippine rights to territory, resources
  • China unlikely to recognize laws, senator says

BEIJING/MANILA: China summoned the Philippines’ ambassador on Friday to express its objection to two new laws in the Southeast Asian nation asserting maritime rights and sovereignty over disputed areas of the South China Sea, its foreign ministry said.
China made “solemn representations” to the ambassador shortly after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act into law to strengthen his country’s maritime claims and bolster its territorial integrity.
The Maritime Zones law “illegally includes most of China’s Huangyan Island and Nansha Islands and related maritime areas in the Philippines’ maritime zones,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, using the Chinese names for Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands respectively.
Beijing has rejected a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims over the South China Sea had no legal basis, in a case that was brought by Manila. The United States, a Philippine ally, backs the court’s ruling.
Marcos said the two laws he signed, which define maritime entitlements and set designated sea lanes and air routes, were a demonstration of commitment to uphold the international rules-based order, and protect Manila’s rights to exploit resources peacefully in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
“Our people, especially our fisher folk, should be able to pursue their livelihood free from uncertainty and harassment,” Marcos said. “We must be able to harness mineral and energy resources in our sea bed.”
But Beijing said the laws were a “serious infringement” of its claims over the contested areas.
“China urges the Philippine side to effectively respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, to immediately stop taking any unilateral actions that may lead to the widening of the dispute and complicate the situation,” Mao said.
China, which also has sovereignty disputes with the other countries in the region, has enacted domestic laws covering the South China Sea, such as a coast guard law in 2021 that allows it to detain foreigners suspected of trespassing.
Beijing, which uses an armada of coast guard ships to assert its claims, routinely accuses vessels of trespassing in areas of the South China Sea that fall inside the EEZs of its neighbors, and has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines in the past year.
Philippine officials acknowledged the challenges they face in implementing the new laws, with one author, Senator Francis Tolentino, saying he did not expect a reduction in tensions.
“China will not recognize these, but the imprimatur that we’ll be getting from the international community would strengthen our position,” Tolentino told a press conference.
The United States on Friday backed the Philippines.
“The passage of the Maritime Zones Act by the Philippines is a routine matter and further clarifies Philippine maritime law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.


Chad accuses Sudan of aiding rebel forces

Chad accuses Sudan of aiding rebel forces
Updated 09 November 2024
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Chad accuses Sudan of aiding rebel forces

Chad accuses Sudan of aiding rebel forces

LIBREVILLE: Chad on Friday accused Sudan of arming and financing rebel groups on Chadian territory with the aim of destabilising its neighbor.
Chad claims Sudan is aiding a rebellion by members of the Zaghawa ethnic group operating out of Sudan’s southwestern El Facher region.
“Sudan is financing and arming terrorist groups operating in the sub-region with the aim of destabilising Chad,” foreign affairs minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said in a press release.
The Zaghawa rebels based in Sudan are led by Ousman Dillo, the younger brother of Chadian opposition leader Yaya Dillo Djerou, who was killed by Chadian military forces earlier this year.
In February 2008, a Zaghawa rebel group based in Sudan launched a lightning offensive in Chad along with other groups, forcing former president Idriss Deby Itno to take refuge in his presidential palace, before he was able to repel them with help from France.
In 2021, Idriss Deby Itno died fighting other rebel forces near the border with Libya and the army named his son Mahamat Idriss Deby as president.
Sudan’s government has accused Chad of meddling in its own civil war by helping to deliver weapons from the United Arab Emirates to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary forces, which Chad and the UAE have denied.
The Sudanese war, which pits the army against the RSF, broke out in April 2023 and has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders, monitors say.