Myanmar rebels prepare to hand key city back to junta, China says
By AFP
April 22, 2025
The flag of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) raised on a welcome arch in Lashio on April 9 - Copyright AFP STR
A Myanmar ethnic minority armed group is preparing to hand a captured city back to the military in a Beijing-brokered deal, China’s foreign ministry said Tuesday, as residents reported junta troops already returning.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) ousted Myanmar’s military from the city of Lashio in August 2024, capturing their northeastern command and a key trade route to China.
Analysts say it was the worst strategic loss the military suffered since seizing power in a 2021 coup that sparked a civil war pitting the generals against anti-coup fighters and long-active ethnic armed groups.
But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters the MNDAA is set to relinquish the city to the military without firing a shot.
“At the joint invitation of both sides, China recently dispatched a ceasefire monitoring team to Lashio, Myanmar, to oversee the ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the MNDAA and to witness the smooth and orderly handover of Lashio’s urban area,” he said.
China is a major ally and arms supplier of the junta but also maintains ties with ethnic rebel groups that hold territory near its border like the MNDAA, which can muster around 8,000 fighters.
Monitors have said the fall of Lashio — around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Chinese territory — was a step too far for Beijing, which balked at the prospect of instability on its borders.
– Military movements in Lashio –
The MNDAA has not commented on the handover and a spokesman for Myanmar’s military could not be reached by AFP for comment.
But a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP: “Some military officers have been transferred to Lashio in recent days. Some are on their way to Lashio already.”
One Lashio resident this week told AFP they had been turned away by an MNDAA checkpoint outside a hotel, after being told members of the group were meeting Myanmar military officials inside.
And a spokesman for the Lashio office of another ethnic armed organisation, allied with the MNDAA, told AFP they were “seeing military vehicles in town”.
In late 2023, the MNDAA and two other ethnic rebel groups began a combined offensive which seized swathes of Myanmar’s northern Shan state, including lucrative ruby mines and trade links.
Beijing has long been eyeing the territory for infrastructure investment under its trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
After Lashio’s fall China cut power, water and internet to the MNDAA’s homeland region of Kokang, a source close to the group told AFP.
In December it said it would cease fire and was ready for China-mediated “peace talks with the Myanmar army on issues such as Lashio”.
Myanmar Catholics mourn pope who remembered their plight
By AFP
April 22, 2025
Faithful pray in memory of the late Pope Francis at St Mary’s Cathedral in Yangon - Copyright AFP Sai Aung MAIN
Joe STENSON, Hla-Hla HTAY
As Catholics filed into Myanmar’s grandest cathedral to mourn Pope Francis on Tuesday, a wartime power cut plunged the worship hall into a murky gloom.
But at the front of the pews a portrait of the pontiff remained illuminated by an unseen source — a backup bulb or an open window keeping the image of his face vivid and bright.
It was a fitting tribute for a faith leader Myanmar Catholics hailed for shining a light on their country in its recent dark and wartorn times.
“Among popes he was the most outspoken on Myanmar,” said 44-year-old nun Sister Lucy, one of hundreds packed into Yangon’s St Mary’s Cathedral as night fell.
“Myanmar Catholics will miss him as the pope who always remembered Myanmar,” she told AFP.
– ‘People in the peripheries’ –
Pope Francis — who died Monday aged 88 — was the only Catholic church chief to visit Myanmar, arriving in 2017 as the country was in the midst of a brief democratic experiment.
Since the military snatched back power in a 2021 coup, Myanmar has been plunged into a many-sided civil war which has killed thousands, displaced millions and seen half the population gripped by poverty.
The conflict often fails to register on the international stage. But for Pope Francis it was a regular refrain as he called the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to pray.
“Let us not fail to assist the people of Myanmar,” Francis urged in his final sermon on Easter Sunday, recalling both the civil war and last month’s magnitude-7.7 earthquake which has killed more than 3,700.
The speech was delivered by an associate because of Francis’ faltering health after he was hospitalised for five weeks with double pneumonia.
“He’s a man who really cared for those people in the peripheries,” Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, the Archbishop of Yangon, told AFP after leading prayers and hymns. “He would always listen.”
The special service on Tuesday night was held as Myanmar’s military said it would extend a ceasefire declared to ease earthquake relief efforts by one more week.
Monitors say fighting has continued despite the truce, with little evidence Pope Francis’s calls for harmony have been answered.
“The message that he left and the homework that he left for the Church is to build peace and reconciliation in the country,” Cardinal Bo said. “He would say, ‘Let’s open our hearts to everyone’.”
Cardinal Bo, a Myanmar native, has been named among the potential successors to Pope Francis, with the new pontiff due to be picked by a secrecy-shrouded conclave of cardinals in the coming weeks.
“We hope that the one that will be succeeding him will have the same sympathy, care and concern for the people of Myanmar,” said Cardinal Bo.
– ‘Practiced what he preached’ –
Inside the sweltering brickwork of St Mary’s a number of worshippers wore souvenir t-shirts from Francis’s 2017 visit and one nun used a novelty fan celebrating his trip to dull the heat.
Just inside its doors, floral tributes were presented before preserved items Francis used on his four-day venture in the Southeast Asian country — a set of vestments, a raised chair, two pillows and a towel.
There are only approximately 700,000 Catholics in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which has a population of over 50 million.
But Francis “asked the other bishops to get out of their comfort zones”, according to 50-year-old nun Sister Margarita, in the rush of the last worshippers arriving for the service heralded by clanging church bells.
“No other pope has come to Myanmar but he came,” she said. “He practiced what he preached.”
By AFP
April 22, 2025
The flag of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) raised on a welcome arch in Lashio on April 9 - Copyright AFP STR
A Myanmar ethnic minority armed group is preparing to hand a captured city back to the military in a Beijing-brokered deal, China’s foreign ministry said Tuesday, as residents reported junta troops already returning.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) ousted Myanmar’s military from the city of Lashio in August 2024, capturing their northeastern command and a key trade route to China.
Analysts say it was the worst strategic loss the military suffered since seizing power in a 2021 coup that sparked a civil war pitting the generals against anti-coup fighters and long-active ethnic armed groups.
But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters the MNDAA is set to relinquish the city to the military without firing a shot.
“At the joint invitation of both sides, China recently dispatched a ceasefire monitoring team to Lashio, Myanmar, to oversee the ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the MNDAA and to witness the smooth and orderly handover of Lashio’s urban area,” he said.
China is a major ally and arms supplier of the junta but also maintains ties with ethnic rebel groups that hold territory near its border like the MNDAA, which can muster around 8,000 fighters.
Monitors have said the fall of Lashio — around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Chinese territory — was a step too far for Beijing, which balked at the prospect of instability on its borders.
– Military movements in Lashio –
The MNDAA has not commented on the handover and a spokesman for Myanmar’s military could not be reached by AFP for comment.
But a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP: “Some military officers have been transferred to Lashio in recent days. Some are on their way to Lashio already.”
One Lashio resident this week told AFP they had been turned away by an MNDAA checkpoint outside a hotel, after being told members of the group were meeting Myanmar military officials inside.
And a spokesman for the Lashio office of another ethnic armed organisation, allied with the MNDAA, told AFP they were “seeing military vehicles in town”.
In late 2023, the MNDAA and two other ethnic rebel groups began a combined offensive which seized swathes of Myanmar’s northern Shan state, including lucrative ruby mines and trade links.
Beijing has long been eyeing the territory for infrastructure investment under its trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
After Lashio’s fall China cut power, water and internet to the MNDAA’s homeland region of Kokang, a source close to the group told AFP.
In December it said it would cease fire and was ready for China-mediated “peace talks with the Myanmar army on issues such as Lashio”.
Myanmar Catholics mourn pope who remembered their plight
By AFP
April 22, 2025
Faithful pray in memory of the late Pope Francis at St Mary’s Cathedral in Yangon - Copyright AFP Sai Aung MAIN
Joe STENSON, Hla-Hla HTAY
As Catholics filed into Myanmar’s grandest cathedral to mourn Pope Francis on Tuesday, a wartime power cut plunged the worship hall into a murky gloom.
But at the front of the pews a portrait of the pontiff remained illuminated by an unseen source — a backup bulb or an open window keeping the image of his face vivid and bright.
It was a fitting tribute for a faith leader Myanmar Catholics hailed for shining a light on their country in its recent dark and wartorn times.
“Among popes he was the most outspoken on Myanmar,” said 44-year-old nun Sister Lucy, one of hundreds packed into Yangon’s St Mary’s Cathedral as night fell.
“Myanmar Catholics will miss him as the pope who always remembered Myanmar,” she told AFP.
– ‘People in the peripheries’ –
Pope Francis — who died Monday aged 88 — was the only Catholic church chief to visit Myanmar, arriving in 2017 as the country was in the midst of a brief democratic experiment.
Since the military snatched back power in a 2021 coup, Myanmar has been plunged into a many-sided civil war which has killed thousands, displaced millions and seen half the population gripped by poverty.
The conflict often fails to register on the international stage. But for Pope Francis it was a regular refrain as he called the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to pray.
“Let us not fail to assist the people of Myanmar,” Francis urged in his final sermon on Easter Sunday, recalling both the civil war and last month’s magnitude-7.7 earthquake which has killed more than 3,700.
The speech was delivered by an associate because of Francis’ faltering health after he was hospitalised for five weeks with double pneumonia.
“He’s a man who really cared for those people in the peripheries,” Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, the Archbishop of Yangon, told AFP after leading prayers and hymns. “He would always listen.”
The special service on Tuesday night was held as Myanmar’s military said it would extend a ceasefire declared to ease earthquake relief efforts by one more week.
Monitors say fighting has continued despite the truce, with little evidence Pope Francis’s calls for harmony have been answered.
“The message that he left and the homework that he left for the Church is to build peace and reconciliation in the country,” Cardinal Bo said. “He would say, ‘Let’s open our hearts to everyone’.”
Cardinal Bo, a Myanmar native, has been named among the potential successors to Pope Francis, with the new pontiff due to be picked by a secrecy-shrouded conclave of cardinals in the coming weeks.
“We hope that the one that will be succeeding him will have the same sympathy, care and concern for the people of Myanmar,” said Cardinal Bo.
– ‘Practiced what he preached’ –
Inside the sweltering brickwork of St Mary’s a number of worshippers wore souvenir t-shirts from Francis’s 2017 visit and one nun used a novelty fan celebrating his trip to dull the heat.
Just inside its doors, floral tributes were presented before preserved items Francis used on his four-day venture in the Southeast Asian country — a set of vestments, a raised chair, two pillows and a towel.
There are only approximately 700,000 Catholics in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which has a population of over 50 million.
But Francis “asked the other bishops to get out of their comfort zones”, according to 50-year-old nun Sister Margarita, in the rush of the last worshippers arriving for the service heralded by clanging church bells.
“No other pope has come to Myanmar but he came,” she said. “He practiced what he preached.”
By AFP
April 21, 2025
Alleged scam centre workers beside dismantled electronic appliances during a crackdown operation in Myanmar - Copyright AFP STR
Asian crime networks running multi-billion-dollar cyber scam centres are expanding their operations across the world as they seek new victims and new ways to launder money, the UN said on Monday.
Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year targeting victims through investment, cryptocurrency, romance and other scams — using an army of workers often trafficked and forced to toil in squalid compounds.
The activity has largely been focused in Myanmar’s lawless border areas and dubious “special economic zones” set up in Cambodia and Laos.
But a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands.
“We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organised crime groups,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC Acting Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
“This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new ways and places to do business, but also a hedging against future risks should disruption continue and intensify in Southeast Asia.”
Countries in east and southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023, the UNODC report said, adding that “much larger estimated losses” were reported around the world.
The syndicates have expanded in Africa — notably in Zambia, Angola and Namibia — as well as Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu.
– Laundering through crypto –
Besides seeking new bases and new victims, the criminal gangs are broadening their horizons to help launder their illicit income, the report said, pointing to team-ups with “South American drug cartels, the Italian mafia, and Irish mob, among many others”.
Illicit cryptocurrency mining — unregulated and anonymous — has become a “powerful tool” for the networks to launder money, the report said.
In June 2023 a sophisticated crypto mining operation in a militia-controlled territory in Libya, equipped with high-powered computers and high-voltage cooling units, was raided and 50 Chinese nationals arrested.
The global spread of the syndicates’ operations has been driven in part by pressure from authorities in Southeast Asia.
A major crackdown on scam centres in Myanmar this year, pushed by Beijing, led to around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen counrties being freed.
But the UN report warns that while such efforts disrupt the scam gangs’ immediate activities, they have shown themselves able to adapt and relocate swiftly.
“It spreads like a cancer,” UNODC’s Hoffman said.
“Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply migrate.”
Alongside the scam centres, staffed by a workforce estimated by the UN to be in the hundreds of thousands, the industry is further enabled by new technological developments.
Operators have developed their own online ecosystems with payment applications, encrypted messaging platforms and cryptocurrencies, to get round mainstream platforms that might be targeted by law enforcement.
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