Anti-junta fighters in Myanmar’s Chin state were aiming to gain control of part of a porous border with India, after tasting early success with the takeover of two military outposts on the remote mountainous frontier, a senior rebel commander said.
Dozens of rebels battled the Myanmar military from dawn to dusk on Monday to overrun two camps abutting India’s Mizoram state, as part of a widening offensive against the junta-led administration, Chin National Front (CNF) Vice Chairman Sui Khar said.
Spokespersons for Myanmar’s junta and India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Myanmar’s military leadership is facing its biggest test since taking power in a 2021 coup after three ethnic minority forces launched a coordinated offensive in late October, capturing some towns and military posts.
The offensive, named by rebels as “Operation 1027” after the date it began, initially made inroads in junta-controlled areas on the border with China in Shan State, where military authorities have lost control of several towns and over 100 military outposts.
“We are continuing our attacks in northern Shan State,” said Kyaw Naing, a spokesperson for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which is part of the operation.
Fighting also erupted on two new fronts this week, in the western states of Rakhine and Chin, which sent thousands of people fleeing to Mizoram.
Some 80 rebels mounted attacks on Rihkhawdar and Khawmawi military camps in Chin at around 4 a.m. on Monday, eventually taking control of both outputs after several hours of fighting, Sui Khar said.
Following the battle, 43 Myanmar soldiers surrendered to Indian police and are currently sheltering in Mizoram, local police official Lalmalsawma Hnamte said.
“Whether they will be pushed back or not, we are waiting for further instructions from the central government,” he said.
India’s federal home ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sui Khar and the Chin Human Rights Organization said they believed some of these soldiers may have been involved in atrocities against civilians.
Chin rebels will now look to consolidate their control along the India-Myanmar border, where the Myanmar military has two more camps, Sui Khar said.
“We’ll move forward,” he said, “Our tactic is from the village to the town to the capital.” Chin State, which had been largely peaceful for years, saw fierce fighting after the 2021 coup by junta leaders with thousands of residents taking up arms, many of them assisted and trained by the CNF.
The Chin rebellion was backed by locals in Mizoram, in part due to close ethnic ties, and tens of thousands of people from Myanmar sought shelter in the small Indian state, including ousted state and federal lawmakers.
TANKS ON THE STREETS
A resident in Rakhine’s capital Sittwe and social media posts said that tanks had been seen on the streets of the city following the eruption of fighting in the western state.
The junta has imposed a curfew in Sittwe and residents have been ordered not to leave their homes after 9 p.m. and businesses must close by 8.30pm or face legal action, according to a government document and media reports.
“We saw tanks going around the town. Many shops are closed today,” a resident said, declining to be named for security reasons.
“The schools are open but families did not send their kids to school today.”
Fighting was occurring across Rakhine state, according to two residents and a spokesperson for the Arakan Army (AA), a group fighting for greater autonomy that has seized military posts in Rathedaung and Minbya towns.
A Rathedaung resident said on Tuesday the area came under artillery fire overnight and that military soldiers had entered the town.
“Artillery fell on a street in Rathedaung town last night. No immediate report of injured or casualties yet,” said the resident, who asked not to be identified.
“People have started fleeing the town. Soldiers are in the town now.”
The country’s military-appointed president last week said Myanmar was at risk of breaking apart because of an ineffective response to the rebellion — the most significant fight back since the 2021 coup deposed the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The generals say they are fighting “terrorists.”
Myanmar rebels seek to control border with India after early wins
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Myanmar rebels seek to control border with India after early wins
- Dozens of rebels battled the Myanmar military from dawn to dusk on Monday to overrun two camps abutting India’s Mizoram state
’I have to pray’: fear, danger for paramedics in South Africa’s crime hotspots
- The call came in just after 7:00 p.m. as the paramedics began the night shift: a man had been stabbed in the head with a glass bottle and was bleeding heavily
The medical crew and their ambulance from Cape Town’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) were only minutes away. But they could not respond until they had an armed police escort.
The Cape Flats, low-lying townships outside Cape Town, are hotspots for murder and gang violence in a country already plagued by one of the highest crime rates in the world.
The sprawling area of Philippi, where the wounded man lay bleeding in a shack, is among the most dangerous.
It is one of nine Red Zones in Cape Town where the EMS refuses to allow its medical crews to move without security cover.
“If it was up to me, I would go straight there,” said paramedic Mawethu Ntintini, 52, pacing the sidewalk outside the Philippi police station in his green reflective uniform.
“But we have to go through the police.”
Waiting inside the ambulance was Ntintini’s partner, Ntombikayisi Joko, who has narrowly escaped ambush while on duty and was robbed in 2021 while waiting for directions to a call-out.
“Every time I’m going out, I have to pray,” the 42-year-old mother told AFP.
“If we were going there by ourselves, we would be robbed,” Ntintini admitted.
They waited another 30 minutes before a police patrol car emerged to escort the ambulance 10 minutes down the road to a small shack of corrugated iron.
Anguished family members crowded at the wounded man’s bed were relieved to see the paramedics. “Sometimes we have to wait until the morning just because we live in a wrong place,” one said.
As the team worked, the police car’s flashing lights cast a blue glow on the dark street.
The man’s injuries, a deep cut to the arm and a bump on the head, were less severe than feared. Loaded into the ambulance, he arrived at the hospital at 8:45 pm, almost two hours after the call for help.
Joko recalled a time the police, overstretched and overburdened, could only free up an escort more than an hour after an emergency was issued for a woman in labor.
It was too late.
“It was a baby boy, he was so cute. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck,” she said.
“I was crying, because I knew that if I was there before, I would have helped that baby.”
Four of South Africa’s top five homicide hotspots last year were in the Cape Flats, according to police figures.
The Western Cape — one of nine provinces — recorded more than 12 people murdered every day, with the national average hovering around 75 a day.
The EMS demanded security escorts in 2015 when there was more than one assault a week on paramedics operating in the Cape Flats.
Incidents peaked in 2017 when nearly 90 attacks were recorded, ranging from verbal abuse and theft to hijackings and stabbings. In 2023, the latest available figure, there were 44 incidents.
Ambulance crews are soft targets for criminals looking to steal phones, money or medical equipment, said Pastor Craven Engel, who runs a gang violence prevention organization called Ceasefire.
He linked the violence to hardships imposed under apartheid, the previous government that espoused racial segregation and forced non-whites into bleak areas like Philippi, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city center.
“It started with the urban displacement, uprooting people, putting them into areas where there’s no economic development, no recreation, no sustainable livelihood,” Engel said.
With high unemployment and rampant poverty, “the resources are so depleted that people are now targeting the good guys,” he told AFP at his offices in Hanover Park, another Red Zone.
Medical crews working to save lives sometimes know the criminals who threaten them and might also, one day, need their assistance, said 32-year-old paramedic Inathi Jacob.
“You get angry,” she said. “But we don’t let them get us to the core. There are a lot of people who really need the services of EMS.”
Ntintini and Joko had just dropped the bleeding man at a hospital when the second “priority one” call of their night shift came in: an elderly man, recently recovered from a stroke, was unresponsive.
Driving to his house would take only five minutes but the ambulance could only leave 40 minutes later, sirens blaring as a police car escorted them down narrow, dark alleyways.
France ‘strongly’ condemns Israel’s Gaza conquest plan
- France’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Paris “very strongly” condemns Israel’s new military campaign in the Gaza Strip
PARIS: France’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Paris “very strongly” condemns Israel’s new military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s unacceptable,” Jean-Noel Barrot said in a radio interview, saying the Israeli government was “in violation of humanitarian law,” after its security cabinet approved a plan that an Israeli official said will entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories.
Bangladesh’s ex-premier Khaleda Zia returns, adding pressure for elections
- Zia has been pressuring Bangladesh’s interim government to hold national election in December this year
- Her physical presence in country has huge symbolic value for her party as ex-PM Hasina remains in exile
DHAKA, Bangladesh: Bangladesh’s ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia returned to the country from London on Tuesday morning after four months of medical treatment, adding to pressure for its interim leaders to hold elections.
The South Asian country has been under a government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in a students-led mass uprising in August last year.
Zia, Hasina’s archrival, and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party have been pushing Yunus’ government to hold a national election in December to return the country to democratic rule.
Many welcomed Hasina’s overthrow as a chance to return to democratic elections, but suspicion and uncertainty have surfaced in recent months about the new government’s commitment to hold elections soon. It has said the next election will be held in either December or by June next year, depending on the extent of reforms in various sectors
Crowds gathered outside Dhaka’s main airport to welcome Zia.
Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, Zia arrived on a special air ambulance arranged by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who also arranged her transport to London in January. Zia suffers from various serious health conditions and she has not attended any public gatherings for many years. Her elder son, Tarique Rahman, leads the party as acting chief from exile in London.
Zia’s physical presence in the country has huge symbolic value for her party while Hasina is in exile in India.
Zia and Hasina have alternately ruled the country as prime ministers since 1991 when the country returned to a democracy after the ouster of authoritarian President H.M. Ershad.
Zia served the country as prime minister three times, twice for full five-year terms and once for just a few months.
Zia is the widow of former military chief-turned-president Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981. Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s independence struggle against Pakistan in 1971.
Trump official says Harvard banned from federal grants
- Harvard has drawn Trump’s ire by refusing to comply with his demands that it accept government oversight of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s education secretary said Monday that Harvard will no longer receive federal grants, escalating an ongoing battle with the prestigious university as it challenges the funding cuts in court.
The Trump administration has for weeks locked horns with Harvard and other higher education institutions over claims they tolerate anti-Semitism on their campuses — threatening their budgets, tax-exempt status and enrollment of foreign students.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, in a letter sent to Harvard’s president and posted online, said that the university “should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided.”
She alleged that Harvard has “failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor.”
Harvard — routinely ranked among the world’s top universities — has drawn Trump’s ire by refusing to comply with his demands that it accept government oversight of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant.
That prompted the Trump administration to in mid-April freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding, with a total of $9 billion under review.
McMahon, a former wrestling executive, said that her letter “marks the end of new grants for the University.”
Harvard is the wealthiest US university with an endowment valued at $53.2 billion in 2024.
The latest move comes as Trump and his White House crack down on US universities on several fronts, justified as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppression of minorities.
The administration has threatened funding freezes and other punishments, prompting concerns over declining academic freedom.
It has also moved to revoke visas and deport foreign students involved in the protests, accusing them of supporting Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel provoked the war.
Trump’s claims about diversity tap into long-standing conservative complaints that US university campuses are too liberal, shutting out right-wing voices and favoring minorities.
Ukraine’s drone attack on Moscow forces airports’ closure, officials say
Russian air defense units destroyed a swarm of Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow for the second night in a row, prompting the closure of the capital’s airports, Russian officials said early on Tuesday.
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that at least 19 Ukrainian drones were destroyed on their approach to Moscow “from different directions.”
“At the sites where fragments fell, there was no destruction or casualties,” Sobyanin wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Specialists from the emergency services are working at the sites where the incidents occurred.”
Some of the debris had landed on one of the key highways leading into the city, he said.
Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram it had halted flights at all four airports that serve Moscow. Airports in a number of regional cities were also closed.
On Tuesday, Russia’s air defense units destroyed four Ukrainian drones on their approach to Moscow, with no damage or injuries reported.
The war began more than three years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine, a move Moscow described as a special military operation. Since then, Kyiv has launched several drone attacks on Moscow. Its biggest attack in March killed three people.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about the latest drone attack. Ukraine says its drone attacks are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s overall war efforts and are in response to Russia’s continued assault on Ukrainian territory, including residential areas and energy infrastructure.
