Myanmar’s ruling junta yesterday said that it had recaptured a town on a trade highway to China from an ethnic armed group in the country’s war-wracked north.
Following a 16-day operation, “on 16 October, Tatmadaw reoccupied Hsipaw completely,” the state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar said, referring to the military by its Burmese name.
Northern Shan State has been rocked by fighting since June last year, when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive against the military along the highway to China’s Yunnan Province.
Photo: AP
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) captured the last remaining military base in the town of Hsipaw in October that year after weeks of fighting.
Hsipaw is on a highway from Myanmar’s Mandalay to the China border, along which hundreds of millions of dollars of trade travels annually.
There were 28 clashes and “engagements” in the two weeks leading up to Hsipaw’s recapture, with the military “seizing 13 dead bodies of terrorists,” the newspaper said.
“The military council is committing war crimes against innocent civilians... whether by manpower, heavy weapons, drones or airstrikes,” the TNLA’s Department of News and Information said, adding that 29 people had been killed since the junta began its latest offensive.
Myanmar’s ruling junta has been fighting a myriad of ethnic armed groups and “People’s Defense Forces” opposed to its rule since it seized power in a February 2021 coup, ending a brief experiment with democracy.
Since the coup, the TNLA — one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed groups — has bolstered its control of a swathe of Shan territory, seizing about a dozen key towns and the country’s main ruby mining hub.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS