Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble

Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble
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A view shows a rare earth mine in Kachin state, Myanmar, on December 21, 2020. (Global Witness Handout via REUTERS)
Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble
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Updated 28 March 2025
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Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble

Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble
  • Ethnic army controls area accounting for nearly half of global heavy rare earths production
  • Rebels seek leverage against Beijing, which invested heavily in rare earths and supports Myanmar’s junta

BANGKOK: When armed rebels seized northern Myanmar’s rare-earths mining belt in October, they dealt a blow to the country’s embattled military junta — and wrested control of a key global resource.
By capturing sites that produce roughly half of the world’s heavy rare earths, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebels have been able to throttle the supply of minerals used in wind turbines and electric vehicles, sending prices of one key element skyward.
The KIA is seeking leverage against neighboring China, which supports the junta and has invested heavily in rare earths mining in Myanmar’s Kachin state, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Chinese imports of rare earth oxides and compounds from Myanmar dropped to 311 metric tons in February, down 89 percent compared to the year-ago period, according to Chinese customs data that hasn’t been previously reported. Most of the fall came after October.
Reuters spoke to nine people with knowledge of Myanmar’s rare earths industry and its four-year civil war about turmoil in the mining belt.
One of them described the move by the KIA, which is part of a patchwork of armed groups fighting military rule, as an attempt to drive a wedge between the junta and China.
“They want to use rare earth reserves as a leverage in their negotiation with China,” said Dan Seng Lawn, executive director of the non-profit Kachinland Research Center, which studies Kachin socio-political issues.




Laborers work on a rare earth mine in Kachin state, Myanmar, on February 20, 2021. (Global Witness Handout via REUTERS)

Three of the people also detailed previously unreported interest in the sector by India, China’s regional rival, which they said in late 2024 sent officials from a state-owned rare earths mining and refining firm to Kachin.
The KIA is one of the largest and oldest ethnic militias in Myanmar. It fights for the autonomy of the Kachin minority, a mostly Christian group who have long held grievances against the Bamar Buddhist majority.
The group has imposed a hefty tax on the mostly Chinese-operated rare-earth miners working around Panwa and Chipwe towns in Kachin, according Dan Seng Lawn, whose institute is based in the state, and a Chinese mining analyst. China has been one of the staunchest international backers of Myanmar’s military since it deposed a civilian-led government in 2021 and ignited a bloody civil war. Beijing continues to see the junta as a guarantor of stability along its frontier, though the military has been ejected from most of the borderlands since a major rebel offensive in 2023.
A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said the department was not aware of the specifics of the situation in the mining belt but it continues to “actively promote peace talks and provide all possible support and assistance for the peace process in northern Myanmar.”
India’s external affairs ministry, the KIA and a junta spokesperson did not return requests for comment. Bawn Myang Co. Ltd, which the US government previously identified as an operator of mines in the area, couldn’t be reached.
PRICE SPIKE
Chinese spot prices of terbium oxide <SMM-REO-TXO>, whose supply is concentrated in Kachin, jumped 21.9 percent to 6,550 yuan per kg between late September and March 24, data from Shanghai Metals Market show. Prices of dysprosium oxide <SMM-REO-DXO>, which is also largely mined in Kachin but was in lower demand over the last six months, eased 3.2 percent to 1,665 yuan per kg during the same period. Most rare earths from Kachin are processed in China, so a protracted stalemate would have global implications.
“A prolonged shutdown would likely lead to higher, potentially more volatile rare earth prices in China, and a reshaping of market dynamics in the near term,” research firm Adamas Intelligence said in a February note.
EXPORT PLUNGE
Chinese miners started building up major operations in Kachin in the 2010s, after Beijing tightened regulations on domestic mines.
Kachin’s often unregulated mines steadily expanded after the 2021 coup with the tacit approval of the junta, according to the U.K-.based Global Witness non-profit.
But the growth came at a heavy cost, ravaging the environment and leaving Kachin’s hills pock-marked with leeching pools, according to witness accounts and satellite imagery. Since the KIA’s takeover, a 20 percent tax imposed by the rebels has made it effectively impossible for local operators to run profitable mines.
The KIA wants China to stop pushing it to set down arms against the junta and to recognize the rebels’ de facto control of the border, said Dan Seng Lawn, adding that the parties had met at least twice in recent months.
The KIA has full control of the border in areas where it operates and anti-junta groups rule most of the rest of Myanmar’s frontier with China. Beijing appeared reluctant to accept the KIA’s demands, though it risked its monopoly on Myanmar’s rare earth reserves if it doesn’t position itself pragmatically, Dan Seng Lawn said.
Reopening the minerals sector would be a major financial lifeline to the rebels: Myanmar’s heavy rare earths trade stood at around $1.4 billion in 2023, according to Global Witness. The KIA has told miners in Kachin it will now allow shipments of existing rare earth inventories to China, Reuters reported Thursday.
But to resume operations at full capacity, the KIA needs an agreement with China, home to thousands of workers with the know-how, said Singapore-based rare-earths expert Thomas Kruemmer.
“Without them, this won’t work, full stop,” he said.
India alternative?
Amid the ongoing tussle, India has attempted to deepen its influence in Kachin, with which it also shares a border, according to Dan Seng Lawn and two people familiar with Indian official thinking.
India’s state-run mining and refining firm IREL in December sent a team to Kachin to study resources there, according to one of the Indian sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Indian authorities have reservations about operating in an area with armed non-state actors, but the Kachin desire to diversify away from China and New Delhi’s need for resources have pushed the two parties to talk, the Indian source said.
IREL did not return requests for comment.
An Indian delegation that included IREL also held an online meeting with the Kachins in December to discuss their interest in reopening the rare-earths sector, said Dan Seng Lawn, who attended the discussion.
They were willing to pay higher prices than China, he said.
Any India deal faces multiple obstacles, said Kruemmer and Dan Seng Lawn.
There is only skeletal infrastructure along the mountainous and sparsely populated Kachin-India frontier, making it challenging for commodities to be moved from Myanmar to the neighboring northeastern states of India. Those states are also far removed from India’s manufacturing belts in the south and west.
India also doesn’t have the ability to commercially process the heavy rare earths and transform them into magnets used by industry, according to Kruemmer and the Indian source. Some 90 percent of the world’s rare earths magnets are produced in China, which has brought the sector under tighter state control, followed by Japan.
Nevertheless, if Beijing does not recognize the “changing power dynamics,” Dan Seng Lawn said, the KIA “will have to open alternative options.”


Three tourists among 4 killed after Italian cable car crashes into a ravine south of Naples

Three tourists among 4 killed after Italian cable car crashes into a ravine south of Naples
Updated 57 min 30 sec ago
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Three tourists among 4 killed after Italian cable car crashes into a ravine south of Naples

Three tourists among 4 killed after Italian cable car crashes into a ravine south of Naples
  • An Arab woman with Israeli citizenship was the third foreign victim to be identified following Thursday’s accident
  • The fourth victim was the Italian driver of the cable car

ROME: Three tourists, including a brother and sister from Britain, were among four people who were killed when a mountain cable car plunged into a ravine south of Naples, an Italian official said Friday.
An Arab woman with Israeli citizenship was the third foreign victim to be identified following Thursday’s accident, said Marco De Rosa, a spokesperson for the mayor of Vico Equense.
The fourth victim was the Italian driver of the cable car. A fifth tourist, said to be the brother of the Israeli victim, is in a stable but critical condition at a Naples hospital, officials said.
Initial reports suggested that a traction cable may have snapped as the cable car ascended Monte Faito, in the town of Castellammare di Stabia. The cable car plunged into a ravine after stopping very close to the station at the top of the peak, at around 1,050 meters (3,400 feet).
Sixteen passengers were helped out of another cable car that was stuck mid-air near the foot of the mountain following the incident.
The accident happened just a week after the cable car, which is popular for its views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, reopened for the season. It averages around 110,000 visitors each year.
The emergency services, including Italy’s alpine rescue, more than 50 firefighters, police and civil protection personnel, worked into the evening in severe weather conditions, with fog and strong winds making rescue operations difficult.
“The traction cable broke. The emergency brake downstream worked, but evidently not the one on the cabin that was entering the station,” Luigi Vicinanza, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, said on Thursday. He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line, which runs 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the town to the top of the mountain.
Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into possible manslaughter, which will involve an inspection of the cable stations, the pylons, the two cabins and the cable, officials said Friday.
The company running the service, the EAV public transport firm, said the seasonal cable car had reopened with all the required safety conditions.
“The reopening had taken place a week ago after three months of tests every day, day and night,” said EAV President Umberto De Gregorio. “This is something inexplicable.”
De Gregorio said technical experts believed there was no connection between the severe weather and the cause of the crash. “There is an automatic system. When the wind exceeds a certain level, the cable car stops automatically,” he said.
The Monte Faito cable car opened in 1952. Four people died in 1960 when a pylon broke.
Italy has recorded two similar fatal accidents involving cable cars in recent years.
A cable car crash in May 2021 in northern Italy killed 14 people, including six Israelis, among them a family of four. In 1998, a low-flying US military jet cut through the cable of a ski lift in Cavalese, in the Dolomites, killing 20 people.


Half a million weapons lost or smuggled after Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

Half a million weapons lost or smuggled after Taliban takeover in Afghanistan
Updated 18 April 2025
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Half a million weapons lost or smuggled after Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

Half a million weapons lost or smuggled after Taliban takeover in Afghanistan
  • When Taliban swept through Afghanistan, they captured about 1 million pieces of US-funded military equipment
  • Many weapons were abandoned by retreating Afghan soldiers or left behind by US forces

LONDON: Around half a million weapons seized by the Taliban after their 2021 takeover of Afghanistan have been lost, sold, or smuggled to militant groups, according to sources who spoke to the BBC.

Some of the missing weapons are believed to be in the hands of Al-Qaeda affiliates, UN officials say.

When the Taliban swept through Afghanistan, they captured about 1 million pieces of US-funded military equipment, including M4 and M16 rifles, according to the report published on Thursday.

Many weapons were abandoned by retreating Afghan soldiers or left behind by US forces, it added.

At a closed-door UN meeting in Doha last year, Taliban officials reportedly admitted that half of this equipment is now “unaccounted for.”

A UN report in February said groups such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were accessing Taliban-captured weapons or buying them on the black market.

The Taliban government denies the claims, insisting that all weapons are securely stored.

However, a 2023 UN report said local Taliban commanders were allowed to keep 20 percent of seized US arms, fueling a thriving black market.

Sources described an underground trade where US-made weapons are now sold via messaging apps like WhatsApp.

Oversight of US equipment in Afghanistan has long been criticized, and a US watchdog, Sigar, said tracking efforts were hampered by poor record-keeping across multiple agencies.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to reclaim the lost weaponry, though experts argue the cost of recovery would outweigh its value.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have used captured Humvees, rifles, and other simpler equipment to bolster their military strength, although they struggle to maintain more complex machinery like Black Hawk helicopters.

Concerns remain that the flow of advanced weaponry to militant groups will continue to destabilize the region.


Australian to stand trial in Russian-occupied Ukraine on mercenary charges

Australian to stand trial in Russian-occupied Ukraine on mercenary charges
Updated 18 April 2025
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Australian to stand trial in Russian-occupied Ukraine on mercenary charges

Australian to stand trial in Russian-occupied Ukraine on mercenary charges
  • Jenkins came to Ukraine in February 2024 from Melbourne
  • Then fought against the Russian army between March and December 2024

MOSCOW: An Australian man will stand trial on mercenary charges in Russian-occupied Lugansk, the eastern region’s Moscow-installed authorities said on Friday, the latest foreign soldier fighting for Ukraine to appear before the court.
“The Prosecutor’s Office of the Lugansk People’s Republic approved the indictment in the criminal case against 33-year-old citizen of the Commonwealth of Australia Oscar Charles Augustus Jenkins,” the authorities said in a statement.
According to the investigators, Jenkins came to Ukraine in February 2024 from Melbourne and then fought against the Russian army between March and December 2024, for which he was paid around $7,000-9,000 a month.
Russia and its eastern Ukraine proxies typically consider foreigners traveling to fight in Ukraine as “mercenaries.”
This enables them to prosecute fighters under its criminal code, rather than treating them as captured prisoners of war with protections and rights under the Geneva Convention.
Most recently British man James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, was charged with terrorism after he was caught in the Kursk region fighting on Ukraine’s side.


Prince Harry requested taxpayer-funded security after Al-Qaeda death threat

Prince Harry requested taxpayer-funded security after Al-Qaeda death threat
Updated 18 April 2025
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Prince Harry requested taxpayer-funded security after Al-Qaeda death threat

Prince Harry requested taxpayer-funded security after Al-Qaeda death threat
  • The prince is in a legal battle with the Home Office over the level of protection he receives in Britain
  • Terror group called for prince ‘to be murdered’ after 2020 decision to reduce his security, court told

LONDON: The UK’s Prince Harry, duke of Sussex, requested taxpayer-funded protection following a murder threat against him by Al-Qaeda, new court documents show.

The prince is in a legal battle with the UK Home Office over the level of taxpayer-funded personal security he receives when traveling back home from the US, and the documents were revealed following the duke of Sussex’s appearance at London’s Royal Courts of Justice last week, The Independent newspaper reported.

The Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC) ordered in 2020 that Prince Harry should receive a lower grade of security when in the UK.

He fought back against the decision, but the High Court dismissed his case against the Home Office last year, which he is now appealing.

Private evidence was heard in the case, showing that Prince Harry submitted a request for protection following the Al-Qaeda threat.

A court summary said the prince “confirmed that he had requested certain protection after a threat was made against him” by the terror organization.

Prince Harry previously claimed he faces a greater risk than Princess Diana, his late mother, with “additional layers of racism and extremism.”

After the RAVEC decision in 2020, Al-Qaeda called for Prince Harry “to be murdered,” written submissions in the prince’s appeal say.

Shaheed Fatima KC, for the prince, said that his security team was told that Al-Qaeda had released a document which said his “assassination would please the Muslim community.”

The RAVEC decision was made after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they would step back from public duties in early 2020.

The pair were later told that, while in the UK, they would no longer receive the full-scale police protection offered to the king and queen, the prince and princess of Wales, and their three children.

An alternative “bespoke” security detail was arranged for the duke and duchess of Sussex.

They are required to give 30 days’ notice of their arrival in Britain for officials to make threat assessments.

Prince Harry had been “singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment,” Fatima said, adding that he “does not accept that ‘bespoke’ means ‘better.’”


In Bihar, 19th-century library holds India’s treasure trove of Arabic manuscripts

In Bihar, 19th-century library holds India’s treasure trove of Arabic manuscripts
Updated 8 min 13 sec ago
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In Bihar, 19th-century library holds India’s treasure trove of Arabic manuscripts

In Bihar, 19th-century library holds India’s treasure trove of Arabic manuscripts
  • Collection includes ‘Kitab Al-Tasrif’ by 10th-century Arab physician Al-Zahrawi, father of operative surgery
  • Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library has more than 21,000 rare and old manuscripts — half of them in Arabic

PATNA: When Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh opened his book collection to the public in the late-19th century, he was fulfilling his father’s wish. Little did he know that, over the decades, their private library would grow into one of India’s richest repositories of the intellectual heritage of South Asia and the Middle East.

The Bakhsh family was a family of jurists and scholars, who migrated from Delhi in the early-19th century and established themselves in Patna — the capital of the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

Khuda Bakhsh’s father, Mohammed Bakhsh, was a lawyer and bibliophile, who collected 1,400 Arabic and Persian manuscripts. His son increased the collection to 4,000.

“He was spending all his money, all his assets, on developing this library, acquiring the manuscripts from all over the world,” Dr. Shayesta Bedar, the library’s former director, told Arab News.

“His father desired that Khuda Baksh should make a library for the use of the public, and it should also specialize in manuscripts. He kept the word.”

The Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library opened in Patna in 1891, in a two-story building near the banks of the Ganges, where it still stands today.

The building of Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library in Patna, India, March 2025. (AN Photo)

It now holds more than 2 million items, including books, calligraphy, paintings and 21,136 manuscripts — half of them in Arabic and another few thousand in Persian.

The library’s founder had an employee named Makki, whose sole duties were to search for and buy centuries-old works on science, history and Islamic studies.

“Makki used to roam all over the world ... and he was acquiring them from different places,” Bedar said.

“(Khuda Bakhsh) was a rich man. He was an advocate, he has his own lands, and he had no other passion except to develop this library.”

Among the rarest manuscripts in the library’s holdings is the “Kitab Al-Tasrif.” Known in English as “The Method of Medicine,” it is an Arabic encyclopedia of medical procedures written near the year 1000 by Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi, a famed Arab physician from Andalusia.

This collage of photos shows pages from medieval Arabic manuscripts, “Kitab Al-Hashaish,” left, and “Kitab Al-Tasrif,” center and right, from the collection of Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library in Patna, India. (Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library)

Al-Zahrawi is considered the father of operative surgery and is credited with performing the first thyroidectomy and introducing more than 200 surgical tools.

Another rare work is the “Kitab Al-Hashaish,” known as the “Book of Herbs,” which is the Arabic translation of the famous Greek botanical and medical text by Dioscorides, a 1st-century physician and pharmacologist.

“These are 11th-century works ... Today’s medical science has been based on this ‘Kitab Al-Tasrif.’ And ‘Kitab Al-Hashaish’ is a collection of works that deal with medicinal plants and animals. These are some of the rarest manuscripts,” Bedar said.

Among the most prominent Persian works in the collection is the original manuscript of “Tarikh-e Khandan-e Timuriyah” (“Chronicle of the Descendants of Timur”), a 16th-century work commissioned by Mughal Emperor Akbar, which describes the descendants of the 14th-century ruler Timur in Iran and India, including Babur, Humayun and Akbar himself.

Another one is the “Divan of Hafez,” a collection of works by the 14th-century Persian Sufi poet Hafez.

“This (volume) was used by Mughal emperors to take out the omens and the writing of these Mughal kings, notes, are on the margins of the manuscript,” Bedar said.

“These (manuscripts) are a few to be named — just a glimpse ... These are the rarest ones, which are not available anywhere else in the world.”

The library has been administrated by the Indian government since the 1950s. In 1969, Parliament declared it an Institution of National Importance, which is fully funded by the Ministry of Culture.

Since 2023, works have been underway to digitalize the library’s collection and many texts are already available online — expanding the reach of Khuda Bakhsh’s library far beyond the Patna community it was intended for.

But most of the research work still happens offline, in the library’s reading rooms.

“We are connected with the libraries of Saudi Arabia, like the library of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah ... People from the Arab world come here for research,” Shakeel Ahmad Shamsi, the library’s information officer, told Arab News.

“We have about 10,000 Arabic manuscripts in this collection, about 8,000 or 9,000 in Persian, and in other languages also like Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Pashto, Turkish ... This library is famous for its manuscripts ... it is famous in the whole world.”