Myanmar authorities detained 273 foreigners from scam compounds along the border with Thailand on Monday, as a senior Chinese official visited frontier towns on both sides in a widening crackdown on illegal online operations.
Hundreds of thousands of people trafficked by criminal gangs have been forced to work in scam compounds that have sprung up across Southeast Asia, including the border between Thailand and Myanmar, the United Nations says.
Despite operating for years, the scam centers have only recently faced renewed scrutiny after the rescue and return to China of actor Wang Xing, abducted in Thailand after being lured there with the promise of a job.
Officials from China, Myanmar and Thailand met in Myawaddy this week, including China’s assistant public security minister, Liu Zhongyi, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said on Tuesday.
“The representatives held a coordination meeting in Myawaddy and discussed the preventive system for telecom fraud between the three countries,” it said, referring to the Myanmar town abutting Thailand in the vicinity of which Wang was rescued.
Since the end of January, Myanmar authorities have found 1,303 foreigners who entered the country illegally and worked in scam compounds in the Myawaddy area, with 273 detained on Monday, the paper added.
Myanmar has been in the throes of a widening civil war since 2021, when its powerful military overthrew an elected government, sparking protests that have morphed into a rebellion against the junta.
Swathes of the Southeast Asian country are now controlled by armed groups, including parts of Myawaddy that are run by the Karen National Army, a militia led by regional warlord Col. Saw Chit Thu.
“We will work until the scam centers and human trafficking are eradicated,” he told reporters on Monday, that signalled the growing pressure on his group from regional countries.
Their tactics include the cutting of Thai electricity, fuel and Internet supplies to some border areas.
A group of 260 scam center survivors from Myawaddy entered Thailand last week, most of them victims of human trafficking, said Choocheap Pongchai, the governor of the Thai province of Tak.
Two of the group have handed to police for further investigation, he added.
Myanmar detains 270 foreigners from scam compounds on Thai border
https://arab.news/5m98u
Myanmar detains 270 foreigners from scam compounds on Thai border
- Hundreds of thousands of people trafficked by criminal gangs forced to work in scam compounds
- Despite operating for years, the scam centers have only recently faced renewed scrutiny
Tornadoes, heavy rains rip across central, southern US
The National Weather Service said there had been at least 15 reports of tornadoes in at least four states by late Wednesday.
Eight people have been injured across Kentucky and Arkansas, including one critically injured in Kentucky’s Ballard County, local officials said.
Late Wednesday, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency across the state due to the storms, which also brought hail and torrential rain.
The NWS said millions of people were under alerts for tornadoes and flash floods and that dangers would continue into early Thursday.
Violent storms are forecast to ravage the country for several days, the NWS said, with Wednesday just “the beginning of a multi-day catastrophic and potentially historic heavy rainfall event.”
“The word for tonight is ‘chaotic,’” said Scott Kleebauer, a NWS meteorologist. “This is a large expanse of storms migrating slowly to the east, stretching from southeast Michigan down into southeastern Arkansas.”
The town of Nevada, Missouri, was hit by a tornado. Writing on social media, the state’s Emergency Management Agency said it caused “major damage to several businesses, power poles were snapped and several (empty) train cars were flipped onto their sides by the powerful storm!“
The NWS issued tornado and flash flood warnings for parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
It called the rain threats for Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Mississippi in the coming days a “generational flood event” with some locations forecast to see as much as 15 inches (38.1 cm) of rain by the weekend, which could cause rivers to burst their banks and cause “catastrophic river flooding.”
More than 400,000 customers had their power knocked out across the storm-hit area, according to PowerOutage.us.
Boat carrying migrants capsizes near Greek island
- Greece is one of the main entry points into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty
- The Greek government has cracked down with increased patrols at sea
ATHENS: A broad search and rescue operation was underway early Thursday near the eastern Greek island of Lesbos after a boat carrying migrants capsized while heading to the island from the nearby Turkish coast, Greece’s coast guard said.
Weather in the area was reported to be good, and it was unclear what caused the boat to overturn early Thursday morning. The coast guard said 23 people have been rescued. There was no immediate information on the survivors’ nationalities or the type of vessel they had been using.
There were no specific reports of missing people, but a sea and land search and rescue operation was continuing, with three coast guard vessels, an air force helicopter and a nearby boat searching for potential further victims.
Greece is one of the main entry points into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, with many making the short but often treacherous journey from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands in inflatable dinghies.
The Greek government has cracked down with increased patrols at sea, and many smuggling rings have shifted their operations south, using larger boats to transport people from the northern coast of Africa to southern Greece.
Search for long-missing flight MH370 suspended: Malaysia minister
- The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Kuala Lumpur: The latest search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been suspended, Kuala Lumpur’s transport minister said, more than a decade after the plane went missing.
“They have stopped the operation for the time being, they will resume the search at the end of this year,” Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a voice recording sent to AFP on Thursday by his aide.
The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has not been found.
Loke’s comments come just one month after authorities said the search had resumed, following earlier failed attempts that covered vast swathes of the Indian Ocean.
An initial Australia-led search covered 120,000 square kilometers (46,300 square miles) in the Indian Ocean over three years, but found hardly any trace of the plane other than a few pieces of debris.
Maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity, based in Britain and the United States, led an unsuccessful hunt in 2018, before agreeing to launch a new search this year.
“Right now, it’s not the season,” Loke said in the recording, which was made during an event at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Wednesday.
“Whether or not it will be found will be subject to the search, nobody can anticipate,” Loke said, referring to the wreckage of the plane.
Myanmar earthquake toll crosses 3,000; forecast rains pose new threat for rescuers
- Last Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake jolted a region home to 28 million, toppling buildings and flattening communities
- Conditions could get even tougher for the huge relief effort after weather officials warned of unseasonal rain
BANGKOK: The death toll from Myanmar’s devastating earthquake has surpassed 3,000, with hundreds more missing, as forecasts of unseasonal rain presented a new challenge for rescue and aid workers trying to reach people in a country riven by civil war.
Last Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake, one of the Southeast Asian nation’s strongest in a century, jolted a region home to 28 million, toppling buildings, flattening communities and leaving many without food, water and shelter.
Deaths rose to 3,003 on Wednesday, with 4,515 injured and 351 missing, Myanmar’s embassy in Japan said on Facebook, while rescuers scramble to find more.
But conditions could get even tougher for the huge relief effort after weather officials warned unseasonal rain from Sunday to April 11 could threaten the areas hardest-hit by the quake, such as Mandalay, Sagaing and the capital Naypyidaw.
“Rain is incoming and there are still so many buried,” an aid worker in Myanmar told Reuters. “And in Mandalay, especially, if it starts to rain, people who are buried will drown even if they’ve survived until this point.”
There have been 53 airlifts of aid to Myanmar, the embassy in Japan added in its post, while more than 1,900 rescue workers arrived from 15 countries, including Southeast Asian neighbors and China, India and Russia.
Despite the devastation, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing will leave his disaster-stricken country on Thursday for a rare trip to a regional summit in Bangkok, state television said.
It is an uncommon foreign visit for a general regarded as a pariah by many countries and the subject of Western sanctions and an International Criminal Court investigation.
Unseasonal rain
The rains will add to the challenges faced by aid and rescue groups, which have called for access to all affected areas despite the strife of civil war.
The military has struggled to run Myanmar since its return to power in a 2021 coup that unseated the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The generals have been internationally isolated since the takeover and Myanmar’s economy and basic services, including health care, have been reduced to tatters amid the strife.
On Wednesday state-run MRTV said a unilateral government ceasefire would take immediate effect for 20 days, to support relief efforts after the quake, but warned authorities would “respond accordingly” if rebels launched attacks.
The move came after a major rebel alliance declared a ceasefire on Tuesday to assist the humanitarian effort.
Nearly a week after the quake, searchers in neighboring Thailand hunting for survivors combed a mountain of debris left after a skyscraper in the capital, Bangkok, collapsed while under construction.
Rescuers are using mechanical diggers and bulldozers to break up 100 tons of concrete to locate any still alive after the disaster that killed 15 people, with 72 still missing.
Thailand’s nationwide toll stands at 22.
South Korea discovers two tonnes of suspected cocaine on board ship
- Korea Customs Service and Coast Guard found 57 boxes of the suspected drug on a bulk ship docked at Gangneung city port
- The ship started its voyage in Mexico and traveled via Ecuador, Panama and China before reaching Gangneung
SEOUL: South Korean authorities found about two tonnes of suspected cocaine on Wednesday on a ship docked at a port, the customs service said, in what appears to be the largest haul of smuggled drugs in the country’s history.
Korea Customs Service and Coast Guard found 57 boxes of the suspected drug on a bulk ship docked at Gangneung city port on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, the customs service said in a statement.
They searched the ship after receiving information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations, South Korean authorities said.
The ship started its voyage in Mexico and traveled via Ecuador, Panama and China before reaching Gangneung, the statement said.
The customs agency had earlier estimated the weight of the suspected drugs at about one ton, but doubled it after weighing the boxes.
The suspected cocaine haul easily outweighs South Korea’s previous record for smuggled drugs, which was 404 kilograms of methamphetamine found in 2021, a customs spokesperson said.
South Korea has tough drug laws, and crimes are typically punishable by at least six months in prison or up to 15 years or more for repeat offenders and dealers.
