Myanmar’s central bank denied a UN report that the country’s military government can still access money and weapons for its war against anti-coup forces, saying financial institutions under the bank’s supervision followed prescribed procedures.
The Central Bank of Myanmar “expressed our strong objection to the UN Special Rapporteur’s report,” it said in a statement published in a junta newspaper on Saturday. “The UN report severely harms the interests of Myanmar civilians and the relationship between Myanmar and other countries.”
The rapporteur on Myanmar’s human rights, Tom Andrews, reported on Wednesday that while international efforts to isolate the junta appear to have dented its ability to buy military equipment, it still imported $253 million worth of weapons, dual-use technologies, manufacturing equipment and other materials in the 12 months to March.
The report said Myanmar had the help of international banks, including those from Southeast Asian neighbor Thailand, for its purchases.
Facing its biggest challenge since its 2021 coup against Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, Myanmar’s military is caught up in multiple, low-intensity conflicts and grappling to stabilize a crumbling economy.
Western countries have imposed multiple financial sanctions on Myanmar’s military, banks and associated businesses.
The central bank said local and international banks engaged in transactions with Myanmar have undergone comprehensive due diligence measures for all business relationships and transactions.
“The financial transactions are only for the importation of essential goods and basic necessities for Myanmar civilians, such as medicines and medical supplies, agricultural and livestock supplies, fertilizers, edible oil and fuels,” it said.
The UN report said exports from Singapore had plunged to just over $10 million from over $110 million in 2022 but that Thai companies in Thailand partially filled the gap, transferring $120 million worth of weapons and materials in 2023, double from the previous year.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the country’s banking and financial institutions follow protocols like other major financial hubs, adding the government will look into the UN rapporteur’s report.
Myanmar central bank denies UN report on weapons transactions
https://arab.news/96tan
Myanmar central bank denies UN report on weapons transactions
UK universities hold almost $610m worth of investments linked to Israel, data shows
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign receives 87 responses to freedom of information request campaign
- Organization vows to ‘keep up the pressure until we achieve divestment at every university’
LONDON: UK universities hold almost $610 million worth of investments linked to Israel, research by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has shown.
The organization submitted freedom of information requests to universities across the UK, discovering financial ties to major Israel-linked companies including BAE Systems, Siemens and Barclays.
Student-led campaigns to divest university investments from Israel have won a series of victories in Britain and continue to gain momentum.
The PSC has led efforts to pressure universities and other institutions into abandoning financial ties to Israel.
It is part of the larger Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement launched among Palestinian civil society in 2005.
The organization received responses from 87 universities following the freedom of information request campaign and has published a database of university ties to Israel through financial investments.
“Direct complicity includes military, security, technological, financial, logistical or infrastructure support,” the PSC said.
“This information adds impetus to the growing divestment campaigns led by students and academics that have won significant concessions from university authorities in the past 18 months.”
The organization found that several universities, including the Essex, Kingston and Warwick, have invested significant funds into companies such as HSBC, Alphabet and Booking.com.
All three companies have faced criticism over their ties to Israel.
Stella Swain, the PSC’s youth and student officer, said: “It’s absolutely shameful that any university is investing in companies complicit in genocide. The fact that our universities invest £460 million ($610 million) in these corporations is an outrage.
“But students across the country are taking action to demand an end to this complicity, standing in a proud history of student resistance to occupation, colonization and apartheid.”
The organization singled out four companies with extensive ties to the Israeli military: Caterpillar, which supplies bulldozers to the IDF; BAE Systems, a key partner in the F-35 jet program; Palantir, which provides AI tools to the IDF; and Alphabet, Google’s parent company which offers cloud computing services to Israeli forces.
Several universities across the UK have made major concessions to student protesters amid mounting pressure from the BDS movement.
Swansea University in Wales committed to abandoning the £5 million it holds in Barclays Bank, while Cambridge’s Trinity College voted last year to divest its sizable investment portfolio from arms companies.
Meanwhile, the University of Portsmouth recently divested an £800,000 investment in Caterpillar following significant student pressure.
“Universities can choose to end their complicity,” Swain said. “Many have started divestment negotiations as a result of student organizing over the past two years.
“These wins show that we need to keep up the pressure until we achieve divestment at every university.”
Saudi industry minister visits Indonesia for critical minerals cooperation talks
- Indonesia holds world’s largest nickel reserves, has rich deposits of other critical minerals
- Bandar Al-Khorayef is on a three-day visit to Jakarta, meeting top officials and executive
JAKARTA: Saudi Arabia’s Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Bandar Al-Khorayef held talks with his Indonesian counterparts in Jakarta on Wednesday, as the two countries explore cooperation in critical minerals and other key resources driving the global energy transition.
Indonesia is the world’s largest source of nickel and has rich deposits of other minerals, such as copper and bauxite. Its mining sector makes a significant contribution to the economy, accounting for about 11.9 percent of GDP in 2023.
Al-Khorayef arrived in the Indonesian capital for a three-day visit on Tuesday and his delegation is meeting both officials and top industry executives.
“We discussed ways to enhance industrial cooperation and expand partnerships between private-sector entities in the two countries, in addition to reviewing investment opportunities and the Kingdom’s goals to become an industrial and logistics hub in the region,” he said in a post on X, after talks with Indonesia’s Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita and State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir.
Tohir also took to social media to highlight the focus of the planned partnerships.
“State-owned enterprises in mining, communications infrastructure, banking and renewable energy sources are the priority of our discussions and the cooperation we will forge,” he wrote on X.
Trade and investment relations between Saudi Arabia and Indonesia have been on the rise. Non-oil trade was worth about $3.3 billion in 2024, showing a 14.5 percent increase compared to 2020.
“There’s still plenty of room for mutual growth. This is why the Indonesian government welcomes the rising interest of Saudi investors in Indonesia’s strategic sectors, including to strengthen the ecosystem of our national industries,” Kartasasmita said.
“Indonesia, with its huge potential in natural resources, market and workforce, and the government’s commitment to industrial downstreaming efforts, is opening up vast opportunities for mutually beneficial collaborations,” he said.
Al-Khorayef’s visit was aimed at attracting more investment to the Kingdom and exploring mutual investment opportunities in mining, food, pharmaceuticals and auto parts industries, in line with Saudi Vision 2030.
On his first day in Jakarta, he met Indonesia’s special envoy for energy and the environment, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, representatives from Indonesia’s state-owned mining industry holding company, MIND ID, and mineral mining company PT Vale Indonesia.
“Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are at a key point in redefining the mineral economy,” MIND ID CEO Maroef Sjamsoeddin said.
“We are ready to explore cooperation opportunities, knowledge exchange and transformational innovation (projects),” he said.
China’s Xi visits Malaysia, pledges closer ties amid US trade war
- Nations sign 31 deals on security, trade, technology, AI, visa exemptions
- Malaysia is second stop on Xi’s regional tour, which also covers Vietnam, Cambodia
KUALA LUMPUR: Chinese President Xi Jinping met Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, as part of a three-nation tour to advance ties in Southeast Asia as a trade war with the US intensifies.
Xi is in the country for a three-day state visit and was met by Anwar on his arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday he was received by the king at the National Palace before holding talks, along with the rest of the Chinese delegation, with Anwar in the administrative capital Putrajaya.
“China looks forward to building a high-level China-Malaysia shared future,” Xi said during a press conference with Anwar.
“Together we will energize modernization in both our countries, set up a fine example of unity and cooperation for the Global South and make a new and greater contribution for peace, stability and prosperity for our region and beyond.”
The visit comes just days after the US announced a 90-day pause on sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, while raising tariffs on Chinese imports to an effective rate of 145 percent. Beijing responded with retaliatory hikes on US exports.
The Trump administration also imposed a 24 percent tariff on Malaysian imports, raising concerns about its export-driven economy.
“The rules-based order has been turned on its head — dialogue has yielded to demands, tariffs are imposed without restraint and the language of cooperation is drowned beneath the noise of threats and coercion,” Anwar said.
“China has been a rational, strong and reliable partner. Malaysia values this consistency. Malaysia will remain an unwavering and principled friend to China … When some nations abandon the principle of shared responsibility and others question long-standing commitments, China’s global initiatives offer a new lease on hope.”
During Wednesday’s meetings, Malaysia and China signed 31 memorandums of understanding, Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The deals span security, trade, technology — including AI cooperation — and visa exemptions.
Since 2009, China has been Malaysia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 15 percent of Malaysia’s exports and 21 percent of its imports. In the first 10 months of last year, two-way trade totaled about $86.3 billion.
But the US also has a strong economic presence in Malaysia.
“Both the US and China are Malaysia’s main trading partners,” Dr. Lim Kim Hwa, director of the public policy think tank Penang Institute, told Arab News.
“While the 90-day tariff reprieve may mitigate the short-term impact, Malaysia needs to treat the complex relationship with both parties deftly so that both parties will not get the idea that a good relationship is a zero-sum game.”
He said that with Beijing, Malaysia should aim for greater participation in its domestic economy, as China was likely to pivot to domestic consumption to mitigate the impact of loss of direct exports to the US, and while “trade re-routing is inevitable, getting China’s commitment to minimize dumping will mitigate the impact on Malaysian manufacturers.”
Xi arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Vietnam and is also due to visit Cambodia.
Vietnam has been hit by a 46 percent US tariff and Cambodia 49 percent.
While Xi’s visit has been seen as a regional push to shore up Beijing’s ties amid the trade war, Oh Ei Sun, a political analyst at the Pacific Research Centre of Malaysia, said it was unlikely that the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations would commit themselves fully to China’s camp.
“This trip is not one which is in immediate response to the latest trade war, but is a long ago planned one which aims to further solidify the already substantial economic ties,” he told Arab News.
“It is highly unlikely that Malaysia or indeed Vietnam will throw its lot with the Chinese. So there is scarcely any significant geopolitical implication, as ASEAN countries, too, largely go their separate ways in engaging the US and China.”
Muslim prisoners in England more frequently subjected to force, data shows
- Freedom of information request highlights disparity in treatment of prisoners
- Muslim prisoners account for 18% of all inmates in England and Wales
LONDON: Muslim prisoners in England are more frequently subjected to painful restraining techniques at the hands of prison staff compared with other inmates, new data shows.
In eight out of nine prisons with high Muslim populations, Muslim men are more frequently targeted with batons, made to wear rigid bar handcuffs, or are held in painful positions, according to data obtained by freedom of information requests.
Maslaha, a social justice charity, requested the information from the nine prisons, The Guardian reported.
It comes amid calls for a crackdown on Muslim gangs in British prisons. The data received by Maslaha covers 2023, the latest full year available.
In London’s Belmarsh prison, which often holds terrorist suspects, Muslim prisoners made up 32 percent of the population in 2023.
However, that year, Muslim men in Belmarsh were subjected to 43 percent of incidents involving the use of rigid bar handcuffs and 61 percent of instances relating to pain-inducing techniques.
Similar disparities were recorded in Cambridgeshire’s HMP Whitemoor, London’s HMP Isis and HMP/YOI Feltham B, as well as HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes.
Just one of the nine prisons included in the data, HMP The Mount, recorded a use of force against Muslim prisoners lower than for the overall population.
Maslaha’s director, Raheel Mohammed, said that the disparities “lay bare the realities of life” for Muslims in British prisons.
He added that Muslims were “being targeted by the use of force, subjected to dangerous, pain-inducing techniques and singled out for deliberately humiliating treatment.”
Separate data from the Ministry of Justice, for September last year, showed that there were 15,594 Muslim prisoners in England and Wales. They accounted for 18 percent of all prison inmates.
In response to the statistics concerning the use of force, Mark Fairhurst, the national chair of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: “Staff only use force at the last resort when necessary and when it is used, it is always proportionate and reasonable.”
Last year, HM Prison & Probation Service launched a national initiative to tackle racial disproportionality in the use of force.
It included measuring disparities in treatment between prisoners of different ethnic groups and religions.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “We recognize the use of force in prisons needs greater supervision and have already introduced mechanisms to reduce the disparities in how it is used.
“Our new race disparity unit will help tackle racial discrimination further.”
Trump says Harvard a ‘joke’ undeserving of US federal funding
- Harvard has stood out for defying Trump’s attempts to force it to submit to wide-ranging government oversight
- Trump’s administration have justified their pressure campaign on universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and support for Hamas
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump doubled down Wednesday on a funding standoff with top university Harvard that has become a focal point of his war against elite educational institutions.
Harvard has stood out for defying Trump’s attempts to force it to submit to wide-ranging government oversight, in contrast to several other universities that have folded under intense pressure from the White House.
“Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.”
On Tuesday, Trump threatened to strip the university of its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit educational institution, after earlier freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding.
Trump has demanded that the university change the way it runs itself, including how it selects students and its hiring practices, and that it submit itself to “audits” of academic programs and departments.
On Tuesday, Harvard President Alan Garber said the school would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”
The US president and his administration have justified their pressure campaign on universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and support for the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
The anti-Semitism allegations are based on protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept across campuses last year.
The White House has also strong-armed dozens of universities and colleges with threats to remove federal funding over their policies meant to encourage racial diversity among students and staff.
