Thai forces have shot dead seven suspected drug smugglers and seized six bags of heroin after a firefight near the Myanmar border, an official said, in the latest clash over narcotics in the remote region.
Heroin and methamphetamine pills are frequently smuggled from Myanmar into Thailand, the gateway to the lucrative Southeast Asian drugs market.
The latest clash broke out between around a dozen suspected drug traffickers and paramilitary forces on Thursday night in Mae Fah Luang district in the kingdom’s northernmost Chiang Rai Province, an official said.
“We still don’t know the identities of the victims,” district chief Vorayan Bunarat said, adding that a machine gun and six full bags of heroin were seized, without providing an estimated value or size of the haul.
He said that some of the group of between 10 and 15 people fired upon by Thai forces “managed to escape.”
There were no casualties among the paramilitaries.
The notorious “Golden Triangle” region — covering parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar — was formerly one of the world’s top producers of opium and heroin, until the emergence of Afghanistan as a drugs production hub.
Myanmar’s eastern Shan state accounts for nearly all of the illegal poppy cultivation in the country, which remains the world’s second-largest opium producer.
Much of the raw material is believed to be smuggled across the border for processing into heroin in China, which is home to the world’s largest number of addicts.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in