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HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Five men were arrested in Vietnam for allegedly attempting to smuggle $2.5 million worth of heroin into China after police shot at their drug-packed vehicle as they tried to flee, local media reported Monday. The men were caught in northern Cao Bang province on the border with China with nearly 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of heroin from Laos in their truck, state-run Thanh Nien newspaper reported. Vietnam is a key trafficking […]
by Sam Reeves / with Kiki Siregar in Jakarta Agence France Presse KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — Trafficked to Malaysia, forced to sleep outside with a dog before dying from serious injuries -– the latest abuse case involving an Indonesian maid highlights a failure to protect domestic helpers despite repeated government pledges, critics say. Adelina Sau died earlier this month in hospital a day after being rescued from her employer’s house in Malaysia’s […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — At least five people have been killed and 15 are still missing after a landslide cascaded down the terraced slopes of a rice field on the Indonesian island of Java on Thursday, officials said. The victims, farmers tending their crops in Brebes district, Central Java, were buried under an avalanche of mud and rock around 8:00 am (0100 GMT). “The landslide buried the farmers working in their rice fields,” disaster mitigation […]
(Eagle News) – Malacanang hit a US intelligence community report that branded President Rodrigo Duterte as one of the Southeast Asian leaders who allegedly pose a threat to democracy and human rights in the region, saying this was a “myopic” and “speculative at best” assessment. In a 28-page “Worldwide Threat Assessment” report of the US Intelligence Community presented by US Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, it listed Philippine president Duterte, Cambodian leader Hun […]
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (AFP) — Two armed ethnic groups will sign on to a ceasefire in Myanmar on Tuesday in a ceremony the government hopes will showcase a significant victory for a peace process derided as “broken” by critics. World attention has recently focused on the desperate plight of the some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims forced over the border into Bangladesh in western Myanmar by a violent military campaign. But this is just one of some two […]
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (AFP) — Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s capital on Sunday to press for action on the Rohingya crisis, as the country faces mounting pressure to punish troops accused of atrocities against the Muslim minority. Johnson spoke with the embattled Myanmar leader, whose reputation among the international community has plunged over her handling of the crisis, in Naypyidaw while on a four-day tour in Asia. The meeting followed […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Two Reuters journalists detained for two months by Myanmar authorities were arrested over their investigation of a massacre of 10 Rohingya men, the news agency said in a report that detailed the grisly killings. It is the first time Reuters has publicly confirmed what Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were working on when they were arrested on December 12 on the outskirts of Yangon. The pair […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Britain, France, the United States and five other countries asked the UN Security Council on Wednesday to discuss the fate of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees driven from Myanmar, diplomats said. The council will hold a meeting on Tuesday to hear UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi report on the crisis sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August. Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Equatorial […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — An Indonesian court on Tuesday jailed an Islamist militant for ten years for buying a cache of firearms from the Philippines’ biggest Muslim rebel group for attacks on home soil. Suryadi Mas’ud, 45, was found guilty of a range of offences —- including planning a terrorist act and procuring weapons —- by a panel of three judges at the West Jakarta district court. The sentencing has highlighted the strong links […]
SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) – China’s continued reclamation in the South China Sea has eroded trust among claimants and could raise regional tensions, Southeast Asian foreign ministers said Tuesday. The ministers from the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) did not mention China by name in their statement after a one-day meeting in Singapore, current chair of the grouping. Beijing claims nearly all of the waterway and has been turning reefs and islets into islands and installing military […]
by Annie BANERJI and Redwan AHMED Agence France-Presse BALUKHALI, Bangladesh (AFP) — It is known as “widows’ camp” — a sanctuary off limits to men inside Bangladesh’s congested refugee settlements, where Rohingya women and children traumatised by violence find rare moments of peace. The cluster of orange tarpaulins strung across bamboo offers a safe haven for dozens of widows and young children left fending for themselves after fleeing into Bangladesh in an exodus of nearly […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar officials have denied a report of five mass graves of Rohingya in a village in crisis-hit Rakhine, a border region gutted by a military crackdown on the Muslim minority. Myanmar troops are accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya, nearly 700,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh since last August. Myanmar denies the allegation, saying it launched a proportionate crackdown on Rohingya rebels, but has blocked reporters and UN […]
