The battle to control assets behind Bosnia crisis


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Wanted man: Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik 

- Copyright AFP ELVIS BARUKCIC

Rusmir SMAJILHODZIC

At the heart of the deepening crisis in Bosnia — where Serb leader Milorad Dodik has been pushing the weak central government to the brink with threats of secession — is a battle over who owns what.

The 1995 Dayton peace deal that put an end to years of bloody war, forced ethnic Serbs — who make up about 31 percent of the population — to accept Bosnia’s independence.

In exchange they got their own statelet of Republika Srpska (RS) with 49 percent of the Balkan nation’s territory.

The Muslim majority and Catholic Croats live together in the country’s other semi-autonomous half.

But the thorny issue of who owned state property — everything from rivers and forests to military installations — was never resolved, putting a break on Bosnia’s already ailing economy.

Bosnian Muslims see the central state as the owner, a view shared by Christian Schmidt, the international envoy tasked with overseeing the Dayton accords and the country’s governance.

But Dodik insists each entity owns the property under its control, saying the issue is a “red line”.

He has accused Schmidt and Western powers of trying to deprive RS of “its assets” in order to weaken it and leave it as an “empty shell”.



– Legal brinkmanship –



The game of legal brinkmanship began in 2022 when the RS parliament passed a law claiming all state property on its territory, but Schmidt annulled it the following year, as did Bosnia’s constitutional court.

Bosnian Serb lawmakers hit back passing laws saying rulings by the high representative and the constitutional court no longer apply in RS.

Schmidt again suspended the laws and amended Bosnia’s penal code to allow the courts to prosecute politicians who rejected decisions of the high representative and the constitutional court.

Dodik ignored the threat and signed the suspended laws.

As a result, he was charged with defying the decision of the high representative in August 2023.

The 66-year-old Serb leader has repeatedly attacked Schmidt’s actions as “illegal”, arguing that his appointment was not approved by the UN Security Council.

But in February Dodik was found guilty by the Sarajevo-based state court and sentenced to a year in prison and banned from office for six years.

Dodik rejected the verdict, saying he would no longer attend the court, with the RS parliament upping the stakes further by banning Bosnia’s judiciary and police from the statelet.



– Cat and mouse game –



In a further “provocation”, he floated a new constitution for the statelet, as well as a breakaway army, border police, and possible confederation with neighbouring Serbia.

That prompted Bosnia’s state prosecutors to investigate Dodik, RS Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and parliamentary speaker Nenad Stevandic for flouting the constitution.

All three have refused to be questioned and last month Bosnia issued warrants for them.

But their arrest was deemed too risky by the authorities, and Dodik travelled to Serbia on March 24 and then to Israel.

Three days later Bosnia’s state court issued an international arrest warrant for him.

Despite being a wanted man, Dodik travelled to Moscow, from where he sent a video message late Monday praising Vladimir Putin. The Russian president said he was “very happy” to receive the Bosnian Serb leader when the two met in the Kremlin Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, Interpol had yet to issue a “red notice” for Dodik’s arrest on its website.

While Bosnia has gone from one crisis to another, many analysts see this one — with Dodik making open secessionist threats — as the most serious since the end of the 1992-1995 war.

Dodik’s aim has been to slowly chip away at Bosnia’s central institutions, said Veldin Kadic, a professor at the Sarajevo University Faculty of Political Science.

He said he wanted to create a “state of legal anarchy… that could politically make Bosnia senseless as a state”.

“It’s either Dodik or Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he told AFP.

Boeing chief to acknowledge ‘serious missteps’ at US Senate hearing

By AFP
April 1, 2025


Boeing has suffered for several years from production quality problems and labor issues - Copyright AFP Philip FONG

The head of US aerospace giant Boeing will on Wednesday tell senators that the company has made “serious missteps in recent years” and commit to restoring consumer and investor confidence, according to an advance copy of his remarks.

On the eve of the hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Kelly Ortberg sent a message to the company’s 160,000 employees saying his testimony would be key “to restore trust” in the crisis-plagued manufacturer.

“Boeing has made serious missteps in recent years — and it is unacceptable,” Ortberg will say, according to the prepared remarks, which the company made public Tuesday.

Boeing has suffered for several years from production quality problems, with the latest major incident in January last year involving an Alaska Airlines 737 seeing a door plug fly off mid-flight.

In January, it reported a loss of $3.9 billion as the company continued to experience a hit from a more than seven-week labor strike that shuttered two major assembly plants.

Ortberg took over in August, and will testify on Boeing’s restructuring efforts.

“We have made sweeping changes to the people, processes, and overall structure of our company,” he will say. “While there is still work ahead of us, these profound changes are underpinned by the deep commitment from all of us to the safety of our products and services.”

In his message to employees, he said “we are starting to turn the corner in our recovery,” although he added that turning the company around would take “time and action.”

Ortberg will acknowledge two 737 MAX 8 crashes in October 2018 and March 2019, which killed a total of 346 people — some of whose relatives are expected at the committee hearing on Wednesday.

He will offer a “pledge to make the necessary changes so this never happens again.”

Boeing has acknowledged that the design of its MCAS stall protection software contributed to the accidents, which occurred on new aircraft shortly after takeoff.

Ortberg will testify that the aircraft manufacturer is implementing a new Safety Management System (SMS) that is “a framework built on proven aviation industry best practices, to proactively identify and manage safety risks that may impact our commercial and defense products.”

‘Heartbreaking’ floods swamp Australia’s cattle country


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Homes inubdated by floodwaters in the town of Windorah in central-west Queensland, Australia

 - Copyright QUEENSLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT/AFP Handout

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods seeping across the Australian outback, officials said Tuesday as the muddy tide drenched an area the size of France.

Swollen rivers burst their banks after unusually heavy downpours last week over outback Queensland, an arid region home to some of the country’s largest cattle ranches.

Officials said more than 100,000 livestock — cattle, sheep, goats and horses — had been swept away, were missing, or had drowned.

“These are only early indications of the magnitude of this disaster and while these preliminary numbers are shocking, we are expecting them to continue to climb as flood waters recede,” said state agriculture minister Tony Perrett.

“It’s heartbreaking to consider what western Queenslanders will be going through over the weeks and months as they discover the full extent of losses and damage — and start the long slog to start again.”

Researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change amplifies the risk of natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.



— Fodder drop —



Flood waters stretched some 500,000 square kilometres (190,000 square miles) across sparsely populated western Queensland, Perrett said, a landmass roughly equivalent to France.

Industry body AgForce told local media some cattle ranches may have lost almost 100 percent of their herd.

The government Bureau of Meteorology said some towns had recorded as much as 500mm (20 inches) of rain in the space of a week — their typical yearly total.

Muddy livestock survived by crowding together on the few small hills cresting above the flood waters, photos posted to social media showed.

Queensland’s fire department used helicopters to drop bales of fodder near surviving animals cut off from food.

The state’s primary industries department said some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) of road had been flooded — a distance greater than the famed Route 66 connecting Chicago to Los Angeles.

Rising waters on Tuesday morning encircled the remote outpost of Thargomindah, which describes itself as Australia’s farthest town from the sea.

A makeshift dirt flood levy was dug around the town to protect its 200 residents.



– Cattle country –



“Preparations are well underway, including securing food deliveries, ensuring the airport has enough aircraft fuel and if need be an evacuation point and accommodation,” the shire council said.

“Our shire’s isolated properties are stocked with food and supplies and doing okay under the circumstances.”

Australia’s so-called “channel country” is one of the country’s biggest cattle fattening grounds.

Most of the time its sweeping plains are dry and inhospitable.

But cattle gorge themselves on the pastures that sprout whenever wet season rains fill the dry creek beds — or channels — that snake through the region.

Spain coal mine blast kills five

By AFP
March 31, 2025


Miners leave the Cerredo coal mine in Asturias in northern Spain, where a blast claimed five lives - Copyright AFP CESAR MANSO

Cesar Manso

Five people died and another four were seriously injured in a blast Monday at a coal mine in northern Spain’s Asturias region, the nation’s deadliest mining accident in decades.

Two other workers at the Cerredo mine in Degana, some 450 kilometres (280 miles) northwest of Madrid, were unharmed in the accident, local emergency services said.

This is the deadliest mining accident in Spain since 1995 when 14 people died following an explosion at a mine in Asturias near the town of Mieres.

Initial indications were that the blast was caused by firedamp, a term referring to methane forming an explosive mixture in coal mines, the central government’s representative in Asturias, Adriana Lastra, told reporters at the scene.

“Police are already investigating what happened, they are already at the scene,” she added.

The explosion occurred underground in the mine at around 9:30 am (0730 GMT) and as news of the blast spread, workers’ families flocked to the site, which was surrounded by police and emergency services vehicles.

“It’s scandalous. Companies used to guarantee safety, but they are doing it less and less,” Jose Antonio Alvarez, a relative of one the miners who died, told regional newspaper El Comercio.

The five people who died were between the ages of 32 and 54, the regional government of Asturias said on X.

The injured were taken to hospitals in nearby cities, two of them by helicopter. They had suffered burns and, in one case, a head injury.

The mine is owned by a recently created local company called Blue Solving, which was trying to repurpose the site for the extraction of “high-performance minerals” for industrial use, according to local daily newspaper La Voz de Asturias.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent his “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims and wished a “speedy recovery” to the injured, in a message posted on X.

The head of the regional government of Asturias, Adrian Barbon, declared two days of mourning “as a sign of respect for the deceased”.

Mining has for centuries been a major industry in Asturias, a densely forested mountainous region.

Chinese developer under scrutiny over Bangkok tower quake collapse


By AFP
April 1, 2025


A Chinese construction company is facing questions over the deadly collapse of a Bangkok skyscraper in a catastrophic earthquake 

- Copyright AFP Sebastien BERGER

Sally Jensen and Chayanit Itthipongmaetee

A Chinese construction company is facing questions over the deadly collapse of a Bangkok skyscraper — the only major building in the capital to fall in a catastrophic earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people in Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.

The 30-storey tower, still under construction, was to house government offices, but the shaking reduced the structure to a pile of rubble in seconds, killing at least 13 people and injuring nine.

It was the deadliest single incident in Thailand after Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake, with the majority of the kingdom’s 20 fatalities thought to be workers on the building site and hopes fading for around 70 still trapped.

Sprawling Bangkok bristles with countless high-rise blocks, but none have reported major damage, prompting many to ask why the block under construction gave way.

“We have to investigate where the mistake happened,” said Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who has ordered a probe into the materials and safety standards at the construction site.

“What happened from the beginning since it was designed? How was this design approved? This was not the first building in the country,” she told reporters on Saturday.

The development near Bangkok’s popular Chatuchak market was a joint project involving China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group (Thailand) — an offshoot of China Railway Group (CREC), one of the world’s largest construction and engineering contractors.



– Questions raised –



Testing of steel rebars — struts used to reinforce concrete — from the site has found that some of the metal used was substandard, Thai safety officials said on Monday.

Industry Minister Akanat Promphan announced that a committee would be set up to investigate, saying one supplier of the steel had failed safety tests in December and may have its licence withdrawn. He did not name the supplier.

Professor of Civil Engineering at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang Suchatwee Sunaswat said there were questions to be answered.

“We have to look at the design. At the beginning, how they calculate, how they design. And in the rescue mission, how they collect evidence at the same time,” he told reporters on Saturday.



– Safety complaints –



The local partner in the project, Italian-Thai Development (ITD) offered condolences on Monday to quake victims but said it was “confident” the incident would not impact its other projects.

Beijing-owned building conglomerate CREC is one of the world’s largest construction and engineering contractors, with projects in more than 90 countries and regions, according to its website.

The Bangkok construction collapse is not the first time CREC and its subsidiaries have come under fire after deadly incidents.

A tide of anger was unleashed at authorities in Serbia following the deaths of 14 people when a roof collapsed in November last year at a train station built by CREC subsidiaries — largely focused on reports of alleged shortcuts made with building projects.

Roisai Wongsuban of the Migrant Working Group advocacy organisation said there have been a large number of complaints from migrant workers employed by Chinese companies in Thailand about lax safety standards and poor labour rights.

“For Chinese companies we can’t see the human rights due diligence, to see if labour standards are being met,” she told AFP.

“There is always a power imbalance between employer and employee.”

Bangkok’s construction boom is powered by an army of labourers, a large proportion of them migrant workers from Myanmar, toiling on hot building sites for low pay.

The Migrant Working Group has called on Thailand’s labour ministry to hold the employers involved in the construction project criminally liable if they have failed to meet health and safety laws.



– China sensitivities –



AFP has asked China Rail No. 10 Engineering Thailand and CREC for comment but has not had a response.

An announcement celebrating the completion of the main structure at the Chatuchak construction site posed on China Rail No. 10’s official WeChat channel was deleted soon after Friday’s quake.

AFP archived the post shortly after the tremors hit but before the page was removed.

Local media said that four Chinese nationals were apprehended on Saturday for attempting to retrieve documents from the collapse site.

But China is the largest source of foreign direct investment in Thailand, injecting $2 billion into the kingdom in 2024, according to Open Development Thailand, and the government typically handles anything linked to Beijing with kid gloves.

Paetongtarn said an investigation into the collapse launched on Monday would not be “specific to one country”.

“We do not want one particular country to think we are only keeping eyes on (it),” she said on Tuesday.

At a small shelter near the site on Monday, 45-year-old Naruemol Thonglek waited for news of her boyfriend, electrician Kyi Than, who was missing under the enormous mound of concrete and twisted metal being lifted by mechanical diggers.

“I’m devastated,” she told AFP. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life.”

Thailand rescue dogs double as emotional support


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Several canine teams have been deployed to help search and rescue at the site of a Bangkok building collapse 

 Copyright AFP Chanakarn Laosarakham

Watsamon Tri-Yasakda

Thailand’s search and rescue dogs are taking on the role of emotional support animals for grieving relatives of victims of a Bangkok skyscraper flattened in a deadly earthquake.

The 30-storey high-rise under construction collapsed in seconds on Friday when a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck neighbouring Myanmar, with effects felt as far as the Thai capital.

As of Tuesday, 13 people — thought to be on-site construction workers — were pronounced dead, with nine injured and more than 70 still believed to be buried in the rubble.

Their tearful families waited near the scene of the collapse, watching on with hopes fading as rescue workers and diggers scraped through the mountain of rubble.

But their faces lit up when they saw golden retrievers Lek and Safari — decked out in official search uniforms — brought to the relatives’ waiting area.

Several canine teams have been deployed to help the search and rescue operation at the site, including from the military and police.

Rescue workers have recruited 11 dogs — not just in their usual capacity sniffing through the debris for signs of life, but also as emotional support for victims’ friends and relatives.

Alongkot Chukaew, deputy director of K9 USAR (urban search and rescue) Thailand, which handles the trained canines, said his team had learned from experience during the Turkey earthquake in 2023 that the dogs’ presence offered a light in the dark for those waiting for news of their families.

“The children whose families were lost, they walked over to our two dogs during their break. They came to play with our dogs, even as their head injuries were clearly visible,” he tol AFP.

It was then that he realised the dogs were doing more than just searching for the victims — they made people feel “less anxious and less sad, even for a short while”.

He said he felt it was important to introduce the dogs to victims’ relatives for them to meet the vital team members searching for their loved ones.

“They are very valuable part of the crew,” said Alongkot, “A team that is on a mission to search for many more people around the world.”

Myanmar quake victim rescued after 5 days as aid calls grow


By AFP
April 2, 2025


A joint team of Myanmar and Turkish rescuers pull a man alive from the rubble of a hotel in the capital Naypyidaw, five days after a major earthquake 

- Copyright MYANMAR MILITARY INFORMATION TEAM/AFP Handout

Rescuers on Wednesday pulled a man alive from the rubble five days after Myanmar’s devastating earthquake, as calls grew for the junta to allow more aid in and halt attacks on rebels.

The shallow 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday flattened buildings across Myanmar, killing more than 2,700 people and making thousands more homeless.

Several leading armed groups fighting the military have suspended hostilities during the quake recovery, but junta chief Min Aung Hlaing vowed to continue “defensive activities” against “terrorists”.

UN agencies, rights groups and foreign governments have urged all sides in Myanmar’s civil war to stop fighting and focus on helping those affected by the quake, the biggest to hit the country in decades.

Hopes of finding more survivors are fading, but there was a moment of joy on Wednesday as a man was pulled alive from the ruins of a hotel in the capital Naypyidaw.

The 26-year-old hotel worker was extracted by a joint Myanmar-Turkish team shortly after midnight, the fire service and junta said.

Dazed and dusty but conscious, the man was pulled through a hole in the rubble and put on a stretcher, video posted on Facebook by the Myanmar Fire Services Department shows.



– Call for peace –



Min Aung Hlaing said Tuesday that the death toll had risen to 2,719, with more than 4,500 injured and 441 still missing.

But with patchy communication and infrastructure delaying efforts to gather information and deliver aid, the true scale of the disaster has yet to become clear, and the toll is likely to rise.

Relief groups say that that response has been hindered by continued fighting between the junta and the complex patchwork of armed groups opposed to its rule, which began in a 2021 coup.

Julie Bishop, the UN special envoy on Myanmar, called on all sides to “focus their efforts on the protection of civilians, including aid workers, and the delivery of life-saving assistance”.

Even before Friday’s earthquake, 3.5 million people were displaced by the fighting, many of them at risk of hunger, according to the United Nations.

Late Tuesday, an alliance of three of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic minority armed groups announced a one-month pause in hostilities to support humanitarian efforts in response to the quake.

The announcement by the Three Brotherhood Alliance followed a separate partial ceasefire called by the People’s Defence Force — civilian groups that took up arms after the coup to fight junta rule.

But there have been multiple reports of junta air strikes against rebel groups since the quake.

“We are aware that some ethnic armed groups are currently not engaged in combat, but are organising and training to carry out attacks,” said Min Aung Hlaing, mentioning sabotage against the electricity supply.

“Since such activities constitute attacks, the Tatmadaw (armed forces) will continue to carry out necessary defensive activities,” he said in a statement late Tuesday.



– Thailand toll rises –



Australia’s government decried the reported air strikes saying they “exacerbated the suffering of the people”.

“We condemn these acts and call on the military regime to immediately cease military operations and allow full humanitarian access to affected areas,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

Amnesty International said “inhumane” military attacks were significantly complicating earthquake relief efforts in Myanmar.

“You cannot ask for aid with one hand and bomb with the other,” said the group’s Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman.

Hundreds of kilometres (miles) away, in the Thai capital Bangkok, workers continued to scour a pile of rubble that formed when Friday’s tremors collapsed a 30-storey skyscraper.

The structure had been under construction at the time, and its crash buried dozens of builders — few of whom have come out alive.

The death toll at the site has risen to 22, with more than 70 still believed trapped in the rubble.

burs-pfc-pdw/rsc

Like ‘living in hell’: Quake-hit Mandalay monastery clears away rubble


By AFP
April 2, 2025


A 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar has reduced many buildings to rubble

- Copyright AFP/File 

Brendan SMIALOWSKI

Bare-handed monks slowly pick away the rubble that was once the wall of a historic Buddhist monastery in Mandalay, its exposed side a searing reminder of the deadly earthquake that rocked the city five days ago.

“Some of the buildings have been around for longer than me,” said Wayama, a grey-haired monk at the place of worship in Myanmar’s second city.

“So it makes me sad to see them destroyed,” he said.

Donning only crimson cloths around their waists and simple slippers, Wayama’s young colleagues at the Thahtay Kyaung Monastery worked to remove piles of debris.

Teams of two piled loose bricks and other crumbled material into large sections of fabric, heaving the rubble aside to make way for walking.

Wayama said his heart aches for more than just the monastery.

“There are a lot of buildings that were destroyed here that have been around for more than 100 years.

“It makes me said to see damages in other places too,” he said. “I want everyone to be ok.”

The Southeast Asian country of over 50 million people is still coming to grips with the scale of damage caused by the deadly quake, which so far has resulted in nearly 3,000 confirmed deaths.

But with four years of civil war having left infrastructure in tatters, relief efforts have been complicated and the toll is expected to rise.



– ‘Day after tomorrow’ –



Nyo Nyo San was in the Mandalay monastery at the time of the deadly earthquake.

When the shaking began, she stayed put, thinking they were only small tremors — the type she had experienced in the past.

“But this time, the earthquake was much stronger, and bricks were falling around the monastery,” she said.

“I felt like I was living in hell, and I ran to escape outside.”

Mandalay has suffered some of the worst damage from the recent earthquake, flattening buildings and upending the lives of many of its more than 1.7 million residents.

Rattled by aftershocks in recent days, hundreds of people are still sleeping in tents and under tarps outdoors, unsure of when they can return to permanent shelter.

Across the country, infrastucture already damaged by years of war has now received another blow.

Nyo Nyo San said she plans to return home to her village soon.

But in order to make the journey, she needs to pass through the Sagaing region — the epicentre of Friday’s quake.

“The Sagaing bridge is broken, and the roads are destroyed,” she said.

“I hope to be able to go home the day after tomorrow.”

Sirens wail and families cry at Myanmar disaster site


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Farmer Shwe Sin had been on a call with her 20-year-old daughter, an accountant at Sky Villa -- among the worst disaster sites in Mandalay -- when the quake struck - Copyright AFP Sebastien BERGER

Sebastien Berger and Hla-Hla Htay

As the sirens wailed outside the ruins of Mandalay’s Sky Villa condominium and Myanmar began a minute’s silence for its more than 2,000 earthquake dead, Shwe Sin thought of her missing child.

“She is such a good daughter,” said the 40-year-old.

The last time she saw Chit Yamin Pyae, she told AFP in tears, “she paid homage to me and her father by touching her forehead to my feet”.

The 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck at 12:51:02 (0621 GMT) on Friday, rocking the earth, toppling some buildings and destroying others.

On Tuesday at precisely the same time, it was hearts that were ripped asunder as the nation fell silent to remember the dead.

A farmer in northern Shan state, Shwe Sin had been on a call with her 20-year-old daughter, an accountant at Sky Villa — among the worst disaster sites in the city — when the quake struck.

Her daughter called out to a friend: “Sister Sister! It is an earthquake! I am scared!”

“What happened? What happened, daughter?” her mother asked.

“I heard her voice but she didn’t hear mine,” Shwe Sin told AFP.

Minutes later the tremors reached her 140 kilometres (87 miles) away in the Shan town of Momeik, and the connection was cut.

The Sky Villa block was one of Mandalay’s better housing options, with a generator offering 24-hour electricity — a rarity in war-ravaged Myanmar even before Friday’s quake — as well as a gym and a swimming pool.

Those who could afford its creature comforts would choose to live there, said one onlooker.

For an unknown number — and the staff who served them — it has become their tomb.



– 11th floor escape –



Some sections collapsed completely, each storey pancaking down on to the next. In another area, the top six levels remained twisted and broken but standing on the remains of those below.

Zhu Zhu was with a friend on the 11th floor when the quake hit.

“I thought that was the day I would die,” the 20-year-old student told AFP.

“I thought about my parents. I thought I was going to die soon and kept thinking about my mum and dad. It felt like the end for me.”

She ran for the emergency exit and escaped through a hole in the wall.

“In the chaos, people collided with each other. As I was jumping and running through the rubble, the rest of the building collapsed, and many people were trapped underneath,” she said.

“I was running blindly, not knowing where I was going. After a while, the dust cleared, and I realised the building had collapsed behind me.”

Among those trapped was her friend Si Si, 26, who was like an older sister to her, Zhu Zhu said.

She has been keeping a vigil at the apartment block every day since the disaster, she said, arriving at 6:00 am and not leaving until after nightfall.

“I hoped she would survive for three days without food or water, but after four days, all I can do is wait for her body to be found. Her family is grieving, and there is no hope left,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

“She was so happy before all of this happened. Now, I can’t even imagine what she looks like. I don’t want to imagine it.”



– Share merit –



Missing posters printed on plastic sheets have begun to appear in the area around the site, sometimes held in place by bricks. In one, a man in blue gives a jaunty thumbs-up in the doorway of what looks like an office building.

In another, four images apparently from the same family show a middle-aged woman, a younger one and a toddler waving uncertainly at the camera.

“They have not yet been found at Sky Villa condo,” reads the caption. “If you find them please contact these numbers.”

In places, the smell of decaying corpses wafts from the debris.

A mechanical digger halfway up a pile of rubble pawed at the concrete, breaking it up.

Nearby a woman stood quietly, looking at the section where her younger brother lived on the third floor and was still inside.

“Please take my good deeds so you can pass to the next life,” said her friend, sharing her accumulated merit in a Buddhist spiritual practice.

“Please don’t share yet, he could still be alive,” the woman replied.

‘Can collapse anytime’: Mandalay quake victims seek respite outdoors


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck in central Myanmar, killing more than 2,000 people - Copyright AFP Sai Aung MAIN, Sai Aung MAIN

Joe STENSON, Lynn MYAT

After a night sprawled out on cardboard panels under hastily erected plastic tarps, hundreds of Mandalay residents awoke Tuesday to more earthquake recovery work, wondering when they can return safely to permanent shelter.

The violent 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Friday near the city in central Myanmar, killing more than 2,000 people, with fears the toll could rise significantly.

Initial tremors destroyed many homes across the city, and persistent aftershocks have left the residents of those spared wary of spending time indoors.

“We don’t dare to go back home because we are worried our neighbouring building will collapse on us,” said 57-year-old grandmother Hlaing Hlaing Hmwe.

“Children want to go back because the weather is hot here,” she said.

Temperatures on Tuesday in the city of more than 1.7 million people again approached 40 degrees Celsius.

Hlaing Hlaing Hmwe said they won’t be able to endure it much longer, so she is considering going to a monastery in search of shelter.

“We heard monasteries collapsed too but there is another one we can go to.”

Though sleeping in the open relieves one of the risk of falling buildings, Soe Tint said that basic amenities such as water, electricity and access to toilets are difficult to come by.

Still, it is preferable to the potential danger of being inside.

“We don’t feel safe to sleep at our home,” said the 71-year-old Mandalay resident. “So we moved to this field”.

The buildings next to his home are as high as six or seven storeys, and he said they are now leaning due to the tremors.

“I even think my own heartbeat is an earthquake.”



– Uncollected belongings –



At the U Hla Thein Buddhist examination hall, where part of the building collapsed as hundreds of monks took an exam, at least 60 uncollected book bags were piled on a table outside.

Textbooks, notebooks and passports were among the contents.

“These are the belongings of the monks who sat the exam,” said one attendant, adding there was a second pile elsewhere.

Fire engines and heavy lifting vehicles were parked outside and an Indian rescue team worked on the pancaked remains of the building.

One Indian officer said there was a terrible smell coming from the building.

“We don’t how many people are under the structure,” he said.

A Myanmar fire official confirmed: “Many dead bodies are coming out. There can be no survivors.”

Complicating recovery efforts is the country’s brutal ongoing civil war, sparked in 2021 when a military junta ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government.

Since then, fighting between the military and a complex patchwork of anti-junta forces has left Myanmar’s infrastructure and economy in tatters.

The country is observing a week of mourning, as announced by the junta, with a minute of silence held Tuesday at 12:51:02 (0621 GMT) — the precise time the quake struck four days before.

In a compound on Tuesday next to Mandalay University, a Myanmar flag flew at half-mast, its yellow, green and red stripes stirred by a desultory breeze.

Traffic has picked up in the city since the quake, but one driver said it was still less than usual.

Soe Tint, who relocated to the field with his family, is eager to return to the comforts of home.

“No one knows how long it will take,” he said.

burs-pfc/aph/hmn

‘Noble work’ of Buddhist cremations after Myanmar quake


By AFP
March 31, 2025


A worker transports the body of an earthquake victim for cremation at a facility on the outskirts of Mandalay, Myanmar on March 31, 2025

 - Copyright AFP Sam Yeh

Hla-Hla HTAY, Joe STENSON

The baby was born in the aftermath of Myanmar’s earthquake and given to the flames of Buddhist funeral rites two days later, too young to have been named.

The child’s pregnant mother was knocked over by the force of the quake while working in a paddy field, said grandmother Khin Myo Swe, and gave birth the following day.

The baby was brought to a hospital in Mandalay to be incubated, but died on Monday.

“We are all living in hardship,” wept Khin Myo Swe as an ambulance worker gently cradled the little body before a Buddha statue decorated with flowers, then took it away to be cremated.

Three days after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar the death toll has hit 2,056, with more still buried in the remnants of ruined buildings in the nation’s second city.

Since the quake hit Friday, ambulances have been bringing the remains of the dead to the crematorium in the Kyar Ni Kan neighbourhood on the outskirts of Mandalay.



– ‘What others cannot’ –



Some 300 bodies have been delivered in total, more than 100 on Sunday alone, forcing them to work six hours beyond their usual closing time.

Some vehicles peel in with frenzied haste. A crew of men say they are bringing a 16-year-old female quake victim.

The bundle of cloth they deposit before the crematorium’s sliding metal door is much shorter than a typical teenage girl and one man retches as they bundle back in the van.

They do not speak as they leave the crematorium lot — eager to ferry her clothing home to bring her soul back to her family.

Nay Htet Lin, the head of another four-man crew who have brought in around 80 bodies since the quake, said: “On the first day of the earthquake, we helped injured people get to hospital.

“On the second day, we had to carry only dead bodies.”



– Cleansing fire –



Cremation is a core tenet of the Buddhist faith, with adherents believing it frees the soul from the body and facilitates rebirth in a new life.

In some Asian cultures, those who deal with the dead are regarded as outcasts, on the margins of society.

But Nay Htet Lin told AFP it was “noble work”.

“We are doing what other people cannot,” he said. “We will have a good next life.”

One 15-year veteran crematorium staffer had no regrets over his choice of workplace, even as he witnessed a parade of anguish.

“Everyone is coming here with their sad feelings, with their suffering,” said the 43-year-old, asking for anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

“When they come here I also work for them.”



– Food offering –



Much of the focus of rescue teams has been in urban Mandalay where apartment complexes have been flattened, a Buddhist religious complex eviscerated and hotels crumpled and twisted into ruins.

At some disaster sites the smell of rotting bodies is unmistakable.

Khin Myo Swe’s short-lived grandchild was the 39th body delivered on Monday. She said the baby’s mother had not yet been told of her child’s death.

It costs less than $3 at free-market rates to cremate an adult in the diesel-fuelled facility, and half that for an infant.

“I had to lie to my daughter, telling her I left the baby in hospital,” said Khin Myo Swe, 49.

“If I tell her now I’m worried the shock would kill her too.

“I will send food as an offering to the monastery for the baby’s soul.”

What is the ‘Qatargate’ scandal roiling Israel?


By AFP
April 2, 2025


Israeli protesters demand an end to the war in Gaza and mock the 'Qatargate' scandal - Copyright AFP Roslan RAHMAN

Ruth EGLASH

Israel has been gripped by allegations linking aides of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to financing from Qatar, which hosts Hamas leaders and helped broker the release of hostages from Gaza.

Dubbed “Qatargate” by Israeli media, the reports that sparked the investigation claimed that some of the people closest to Netanyahu were recruited to promote the image of Qatar, an enemy state, in Israel.



– What do we know? –



At least two of Netanyahu’s aides are suspected of receiving payments from the Qatari government to promote Doha’s interests in Israel.

With the investigation ongoing, some details in the investigation remain unclear.

Allegations of ties between members of Netanyahu’s close circle and the Qatari government have swirled in the Israeli press since mid-2024.

The affair ramped up Monday when two aides, one current and one former, were arrested and Netanyahu was called in for questioning in a probe he slammed as a “political witch hunt”.

Though the Israeli leader is not a suspect, he is separately on trial over corruption and breach of trust allegations.

“They are holding Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein hostage,” Netanyahu said in an angry video post after being questioned.

An Israeli court on Tuesday extended the detention of the two aides for an additional three days, until Thursday.

Qatari officials did not immediately respond for comment when contacted by AFP.



– Who are the suspects? –



Yonatan Urich, who has been working closely with Netanyahu for most of the past decade, started out as the social media manager for the prime minister’s Likud party.

Urich also co-owns a media consulting firm called Perception with Yisrael Einhorn, who has also worked with Netanyahu.

It is not the first time influential Israeli figures have been accused of receiving payments from Qatar.

According to Israeli media reports, Perception was reportedly hired to improve Qatar’s image ahead of the 2022 World Cup, though Urich and the firm denied the claims at the time.

Eli Feldstein is already under investigation for leaking classified documents to journalists during the short time he worked unofficially as the prime minister’s military affairs spokesman.

According to reports, Netanyahu was seeking to offer Feldstein a more permanent role but after failing to receive the necessary security clearance, he remained an external contractor.

Last month, an investigation by Israel’s Channel 12 alleged that while working for Netanyahu, Feldstein received a salary from Jay Footlik, a known US lobbyist for Qatar.

Further reports on Monday said that Feldstein promoted Qatar to Israeli journalists and arranged trips for them to Doha.

Footlik owns a consulting firm, Third Circle Inc., registered under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as working for Qatar.

An Israeli court on Tuesday said suspicions were related to Third Circle and funds aimed at “projecting a positive image of Qatar” in relation to its role as a mediator for a truce and hostage release agreement in Gaza.

A final name that has been linked to the affair is Israeli businessman Gil Birger, who this month told Israel’s state broadcaster that he had been asked by Footlik to pay Feldstein through his company.



– What’s the significance? –



Jonathan Rynhold, head of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, told AFP that the affair “ties all bad things relating to Netanyahu together in one package.”

“This links Netanyahu directly to the policy of appeasing Hamas,” Rynhold said, referring to Israel allowing Qatar to send millions of dollars in cash into Gaza that many now believe strengthened Hamas and enabled it to conduct its October 7, 2023 attack.

Qatar has previously rejected the claims as false, saying they were driven by internal Israeli politics.

Still, the affair has piled more pressure on Netanyahu, who has clashed with the judiciary over his bid to sack Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency.

Bar’s relationship with the Netanyahu government soured after he blamed the executive for the security fiasco of Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and crucially, following a Shin Bet probe into Qatargate.



– What next for Netanyahu? –



It is unclear how Netanyahu will manage the fallout from the affair.

“It is too early to say how it will develop,” said Professor Gideon Rahat of the Hebrew University.

“Will he need to sacrifice these two people? If he sacrifices them, will they open their mouths?” Rahat said.

For now, he is fighting back and “framing it as though the secret service is after him because he wants to kick out the head of the secret service”, Rahat added.

“In a normal country, if the prime minister had spies in his office, he would resign, but we are not in normal times.”

Hunger returns to Gaza as Israeli blockade forces bakeries shut


By AFP
April 2, 2025


A Palestinian boy leaves empty-handed after finding this Gaza City bakery closed for want of flour after stocks ran out in the face of a month-old Israeli aid blockade. - Copyright AFP/File Brendan SMIALOWSKI

Youssef Hassouna

At an industrial bakery in war-ravaged Gaza City, a conveyor belt that once churned out thousands of pitta breads every day has come to a standstill.

The Families Bakery is one of about two dozen supported by the World Food Programme (WFP) that have halted production in recent days due to flour and fuel shortages resulting from an Israeli blockade.

“All 25 WFP-supported bakeries in Gaza have shut down due to lack of fuel and flour,” the UN agency said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it would “distribute its last food parcels in the next two days”.

Abed al-Ajrami, chairman of the Bakery Owners Association in Gaza and owner of the Families Bakery, told AFP that the WFP was the only sponsor of Gaza bakeries and provided them with “all their needs”.

“The repercussions from the closure of the bakeries will be very hard on citizens because they have no alternative to resort to,” he told AFP.

Speaking in front of a large industrial oven that had not been fired up, he said that bakeries were central to the UN agency’s food distribution programme, which delivered the bread to refugee camps across Gaza.

Despite a six-week truce that allowed displaced Gazans to return to what remained of their homes, negotiations for a lasting end to the fighting have stalled.

On March 2, Israel imposed a full blockade on the Palestinian territory, and cut off power to Gaza’s main water desalination plant.

On March 18, Israel resumed its strikes on Gaza. Days later, Hamas again began firing rockets at Israel.

The Palestinian militant group has accused Israel of using starvation as “a direct weapon in this brutal war”, pointing to the bakeries’ closure as an example.

It called on Arab and Muslim countries to “act urgently to save Gaza from famine and destruction”.

– ‘Reliving the famine’ –

Residents of Gaza City were wary of the future.

“I got up in the morning to buy bread for my children but I found all the bakeries closed,” Mahmud Khalil told AFP.

Fellow resident Amina al-Sayed echoed his comments.

“I’ve been going from bakery to bakery all morning, but none of them are operating, they’re all closed,” she said, adding that she feared the threat of famine would soon stalk Gaza once again.

“The price of flour has risen… and we can’t afford it. We’re afraid of reliving the famine that we experienced in the south” of the territory.

International charities working in Gaza warn that its 2.4 million people cannot endure more shortages after many of them were displaced multiple times during the devastating military campaign Israel launched in response to Hamas’s October 2023 attack.

Those who took advantage of the six-week truce to return to bombed out homes have been “arriving in utter destitution”, said Gavin Kelleher of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

“We’ve been set up to fail as a humanitarian response. We’re not allowed to bring in supplies, we’re not able to meet needs,” he lamented.

Alexandra Saieh, of British charity Save The Children, echoed Kelleher’s remarks.

“When Save The Children does distribute food in Gaza, we see massive crowds because every single person in Gaza is relying on aid,” she said.

“That lifeline has been cut.”

WHO facing $2.5-bn gap even after slashing budget: report


By AFP
April 2, 2025


Former Ethiopian health and foreign minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has led the WHO since 2017 - Copyright AFP Fabrice COFFRINI

The World Health Organization is facing a gaping deficit this year and through 2027 following the US decision to withdraw, even after dramatically slashing its budget, a media report indicated Wednesday.

As the United Nations health agency has been bracing for the planned full US withdrawal next January, it has gradually shrunk its two-year budget for 2026-2027 from $5.3 billion to $4.2 billion.

But even after the dramatic scaling back, it remains $1.9 billion short towards that budget, Health Policy Watch reported Wednesday.

That figure, which the publication said had been provided to staff during a town hall meeting on Tuesday, comes on top of the nearly $600 million the agency had already warned was missing towards this year’s budget, it said.

WHO did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the report, which comes as the organisation is grappling with the looming departure of its historically biggest donor.

Besides announcing the US pullout from the WHO after returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump decided to freeze virtually all US foreign aid, including vast assistance to health projects worldwide.

The United States gave WHO $1.3 billion during its 2022-2023 budget period, mainly through voluntary contributions for specific earmarked projects rather than fixed membership fees.

But Washington never paid its 2024 dues, and is not expected to respect its membership obligations for 2025, the agency acknowledged.

Altogether, the United States owes $260 million in membership fees alone for 2024-2025, according to a WHO overview.

Only Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had informed staff of the $600-million hole in this year’s budget, warning in a message seen by AFP that the agency had “no choice” but to start making cutbacks.

“Dramatic cuts to official development assistance by the United States of America and others are causing massive disruption to countries, NGOs and United Nations agencies, including WHO,” Tedros said in his email.

He said that even before Trump triggered the one-year process of withdrawing from the WHO, the organisation was already facing financial constraints.

“Despite our best efforts, we are now at the point where we have no choice but to reduce the scale of our work and workforce,” said Tedros.

“This reduction will begin at headquarters, starting with senior leadership, but will affect all levels and regions,” he told staff.

Last month, Tedros asked Washington to reconsider its sharp cuts to global health funding, warning that the sudden halt threatened millions of lives.

He said disruptions to global HIV programmes alone could lead to “more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and three million HIV-related deaths”.

Advances in AI aid in preparations for the next global pandemic

By Dr. Tim Sandle
April 1, 2025
DIGITAL JOURNAL


Covid-19 killed millions but four years to the day after the WHO declared an international emergency, countries cannot agree a treaty to head off a new pandemic - Copyright Israeli Army/AFP -

Researchers have presented how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can transform the landscape of infectious disease research and improve pandemic preparedness. This relates to breakthroughs in infectious disease research and outbreak response. The biological advances have been coupled with technological change, notably with: machine learning, computational statistics, information retrieval and data science.

The study outlines how recent advances in AI methodologies are performing increasingly well even with limited data — a major bottleneck to date. This improved performance on noisy and limited data has opened up new areas for AI tools to improve health across both high-income and low-income countries in the area of pandemic preparedness.

Opportunities for AI and pandemic preparedness identified in the research include advances in improving current models of disease spread, aiming to make modelling more robust, accurate and realistic.

There has also been progress made in pinpointing areas of high-transmission potential, helping ensure limited healthcare resources can be allocated in the most efficient possible way. This is notwithstanding that the number of cases that would be classed as an outbreak varies according to what causes the disease and the size and type of previous and existing exposure to the cause.

Looking into the near future, AI has the potential to improve genetic data in disease surveillance, ultimately accelerating vaccine development and the identification of new variants. In addition, there is the likelihood of AI assessing the properties of new pathogens, predict their traits and identify whether cross species jumps are likely.

Another innovation on the horizon is a possible AI-aided integration of population-level data with data from individual-level sources — including wearable technologies such as heart rate and step counts — to better detect and monitor outbreaks.

One of the lead scientists was Professor Moritz Kraemer (University of Oxford). Discussing the new approach, Kraemer says the AI will “Help us better anticipate where outbreaks will start and predict their trajectory, using terabytes of routinely collected climatic and socio-economic data. It might also help predict the impact of disease outbreaks on individual patients by studying the interactions between the immune system and emerging pathogens.”

The primary limitation in using the capability of AI to predict disease spread is with the quality and representativeness of training data, the limited accessibility of AI models to the wider community, and potential risks associated with the deployment of black-box models for decision making.

Furthermore, such technology would require extensive worldwide collaboration and from comprehensive, continuous surveillance data inputs. The state of interaction between leading nations worldwide is not in a good place currently.

The research appears in the science journal Nature, titled “Artificial intelligence for modelling infectious disease epidemics.”