WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS: The US State Department will conduct a review of its foreign assistance to Myanmar after determining that the military takeover in the Asian country this week constituted a coup, senior officials said on Tuesday.
US President Joe Biden has threatened new sanctions against the generals who seized power in Myanmar and detained elected leaders including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi early on Monday.
In a briefing with reporters, State Department officials said Washington has not been in direct contact with the coup leaders in Myanmar or the deposed civilian government leaders.
Under US law, the assessment that a coup has taken place automatically puts restrictions on US assistance, but officials said humanitarian aid, including to the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, and programs that promote democracy or benefit civil society would continue.
“In addition, we will take a broader review of our assistance programs to ensure they align with recent events,” a State Department official said.
US officials would also conduct a review of sanctions against Myanmar’s military leaders and companies associated with them, the official said.
State Department officials briefed staff from the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday about the situation but did not preview new sanctions, according to aides who were on the call.
US officials were trying to work with European and Asian allies who have contacts with Myanmar’s military, but had not made much progress, lawmakers were told, according to an aide.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who has close ties to Suu Kyi, said in a statement he had spoken to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday about the situation in Myanmar and urged the administration to “impose significant costs on the military for its attack on democracy.”
Meanwhile, the UN envoy for Myanmar urged an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday to ensure that “democracy is expeditiously restored” to the Southeast Asian nation, but the United Nations’ most powerful body took no immediate action.
Christine Schraner Burgener, the Myanmar ambassador who is currently in Europe, strongly condemned the military’s takeover of the government and said the council must “collectively send a clear signal in support of democracy in Myanmar” and ensure the country “doesn’t fall back into isolation.”
Diplomats said restoring democracy was the key element of a draft statement prepared for the council to release to the media after the closed-door meeting, along with a condemnation of the military’s action and call for the immediate release of all those detained.
But the statement was not issued because it requires support from all 15 council members and the UN missions for China and Russia said they needed to send it to their capitals for review, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed. China has close ties to Myanmar.
Schraner Burgener told the council that the Myanmar military’s declaration of a state of emergency and detention of top leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi and dozens of lawmakers and civilian officials just as the new parliamentary session was about to open Monday “was surprising and shocking.”
The military said the seizure of power was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud in November’s election in which Suu Kyi’s party won a majority of seats.
Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, the current council president, told reporters after the meeting that ambassadors echoed widespread international concerns about the military’s action at the virtual session.
“And we welcome the role of regional partners ... to resolve this crisis,” including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, she said.
Brunei, which chairs the 10-nation regional ASEAN group, including Myanmar, issued a statement Monday noting the bloc’s principles include “the adherence to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The statement encouraged “the pursuance of dialogue, reconciliation and the return to normalcy in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar.”
But it made no mention of any action by ASEAN to take the lead in returning Myanmar to a democratic path.
At the United Nations, Woodward said: “Discussions will continue among council colleagues on next steps. I certainly hope that we will be able to speak with one voice.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, called Myanmar “a friendly neighbor” Tuesday and expressed hope that all parties “will properly handle their differences under the constitutional and legal framework and maintain political and social stability.”
“Whatever actions taken by the international community shall contribute to Myanmar’s political and social stability, promote its peace and reconciliation, and avoid escalating the conflict and complicating the situation,” Wang said in Beijing.
Myanmar has been a very difficult issue for the Security Council to take any action, but not impossible.
In November 2017, the council adopted a presidential statement condemning widespread violence in northern Rakhine State and expressing grave concern at reported human rights violations by Myanmar’s security forces against minority Rohingya Muslims. It called on the government to ensure “no further excessive use of military force,” which led 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
Before Tuesday’s council meeting, the UN’s director for the group Human Rights Watch, Louis Charbonneau, said the council’s “abysmal failure to address Myanmar’s past appalling human rights abuses assured the military they could do as they please without serious consequences.”
He called on the council to demand the immediate release of all detained political leaders and activists and the restoration of civilian democratic rule. He said sanctions should be imposed “on those military leaders responsible.”
Amnesty International’s deputy director of advocacy, Sherine Tadros, urged the council to freeze the assets of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, now in charge of the government, and other military leaders responsible for crimes against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya.
“The Security Council must also impose a comprehensive global arms embargo on Myanmar, and crucially, refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court,” she said.
US President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday called the Myanmar military’s action a coup, setting the stage for sanctions and other measures targeting what State Department officials said was “the very small circle of military generals” responsible.
While the US and other Western nations may impose sanctions on Myanmar, Security Council approval of targeted measures is highly unlikely. That would take a resolution, which China would likely veto.
Getting approval for a press statement remains a possibility, but not a certainty.
Sven Jürgenson, the UN ambassador for council member Estonia, supported the proposed statement, strongly condemning the coup and urging Myanmar’s military to respect the 2008 constitution, allow Parliament to do its work, and “recommit to the peace process.”
(With Reuters and AP)
US calls military acts in Myanmar a coup, UN Security Council takes no action
https://arab.news/r937q
US calls military acts in Myanmar a coup, UN Security Council takes no action
- Biden has threatened new sanctions against the generals who seized power in Myanmar
- UN envoy urges Security Council to ‘send clear signal’ to support Myanmar democracy
Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal
- Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’
- Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.
Russian president meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas transit contract nears expiry
- Fico has also been a rare senior EU politician to appear on Russian state TV following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin met Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in the Kremlin on Sunday, a rare visit by a European Union leader to Moscow as a contract allowing for Russian gas to transit through Ukraine nears expiry.
Slovakia is dependent on gas passing through its neighbor Ukraine, and it has ramped up efforts to maintain those flows from 2025 while criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to extend the contract expiring at the end of the year.
Fico’s trip to Moscow was only the third by an EU government head since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Slovak opposition politicians called the visit a “disgrace.”
Fico said on Facebook after the meeting that top EU officials were informed of his trip on Friday.
He said it came in response to talks last week with Zelensky, who, according to the Slovak leader, had expressed opposition to any gas transit through Ukraine to Slovakia.
“Russian President V. Putin confirmed the readiness of the (Russian Federation) to continue to supply gas to the West and Slovakia, which is practically impossible after Jan. 1, 2025 in view of the stance of the Ukrainian president,” Fico said.
Fico came to power in 2023 and shifted Slovakia’s foreign policy. He immediately stopped state military aid to Kyiv, has said the war with Russia does not have a military solution, and has criticized sanctions against Moscow.
His visit to the Kremlin follows Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who visited in April 2022, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who went to Moscow last July. EU allies had criticized both of those visits.
Russian television showed Putin and Fico shaking hands at the start of their talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting had been arranged a few days ago.
In the talks, Fico said he and Putin exchanged opinions on the military situation in Ukraine, chances of a peaceful end to the war and on Slovak-Russian relations “which I intend to standardise.”
GAS TRANSIT
Slovakia, which has a long-term contract with Russia’s Gazprom, has been trying to keep receiving gas through Ukraine, saying buying elsewhere would cost it 220 million euros ($229 million) more in transit expenses.
Ukraine has repeatedly refused to extend the transit deal.
Fico pushed the subject on Thursday at a EU summit that was also attended by Zelensky, who reiterated his country would not continue the transit of Russian gas.
The Slovak prime minister, who has said his country was facing a gas crisis, has also spoken of solutions under which Ukraine would not transit Russian-owned gas, but rather gas owned by someone else.
Hungary has also been keen to keep the Ukrainian route, but it will continue to receive Russian gas from the south, via the TurkStream pipeline on the bed of the Black Sea.
Ex-Soviet Moldova has also relied on gas transiting Ukraine to supply its needs and those of its separatist Transdniestria enclave, including a thermal plant that provides most of the electricity for parts of Moldova under government control.
The acting head of Moldovagaz, the country’s gas operator, Vadim Ceban, said it could provide gas for Transdniestria acquired from other sources. But the pro-Russian region would have to pay higher prices associated with those supplies.
Ceban said Moldovagaz had made several appeals to Gazprom to send gas to Moldova through TurkStream and Bulgaria and Romania.
Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro
HO CHI MINH CITY: Thousands of selfie-taking Ho Chi Minh City residents crammed into train carriages Sunday as the traffic-clogged business hub celebrated the opening of its first-ever metro line after years of delays.
Huge queues spilled out of every station along the $1.7 billion line that runs almost 20 kilometers from the city center — with women in traditional “ao dai” dress, soldiers in uniform and couples clutching young children waiting excitedly to board.
“I know it (the project) is late, but I still feel so very honored and proud to be among the first on this metro,” said office worker Nguyen Nhu Huyen after snatching a selfie in her jam-packed train car.
“Our city is now on par with the other big cities of the world,” she said.
It took 17 years for Vietnam’s commercial capital to reach this point. The project, funded largely by Japanese government loans, was first approved in 2007 and slated to cost just $668 million.
When construction began in 2012, authorities promised the line would be up and running in just five years.
But as delays mounted, cars and motorbikes multiplied in the city of nine million people, making the metropolis hugely congested, increasingly polluted and time-consuming to navigate.
The metro “meets the growing travel needs of residents and contributes to reducing traffic congestion and environmental pollution,” the city’s deputy mayor Bui Xuan Cuong said.
Cuong admitted authorities had to overcome “countless hurdles” to get the project over the line.
Suspect in German Christmas market attack held on murder charges
- Suspect strongly critical of German authorities as well as Islam in the past
- Saudi Arabia repeatedly flagged to Germany concerns over posts on suspect’s social media, according to sources
MAGDEBURG: A man suspected of plowing a car through crowds at a German Christmas market in an attack that killed five people and injured scores faces multiple charges of murder and attempted murder, police said on Sunday.
Friday evening’s attack in the central city of Magdeburg shocked the country and stirred up tensions over the charged issue of immigration.
The suspect, who was in custody, is a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who has lived in Germany for almost two decades. The motive for the attack remained unclear.
There were scuffles and some “minor disturbances” at a far-right demonstration attended by around 2,100 people on Saturday night in Magdeburg, police said. They added that criminal proceedings would follow, but did not give details.
Protesters, some wearing black balaclavas, held up a large banner with the word “remigration,” a term popular with supporters of the far right who seek the mass deportation of immigrants and people deemed not ethnically German.
Other residents gathered to pay their respects to the dead.
A sea of flowers stretched out in front of St. John’s Church in Magdeburg, close to the scene of the crime, which attracted a steady stream of tearful mourners over the weekend.
“This is my second time here. I was here yesterday. I brought flowers and it moved me so much and I had to know today how many flowers were brought,” local resident Ingolf Klinzmann told Reuters.
A sign commemorating the victims bore in large lettering the word “Why?.”
A magistrate ordered the suspect, identified in German media as Taleb A., into pretrial custody on charges of murder on five counts as well as multiple counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, police said in a statement.
Reuters could not immediately ascertain if the suspect had a lawyer.
Those killed were a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 52, 45, 75 and 67, the police statement said. Among the wounded, around 40 had serious or critical injuries.
Authorities said the suspected attacker used emergency exit points to drive onto the grounds of the Christmas market, where he picked up speed and plowed into the crowds, hitting more than 200 people in a three-minute attack. He was arrested at the scene.
German authorities have not named the suspect and German media reports have given his name only as Taleb A. in keeping with local privacy laws.
MOTIVE UNCLEAR
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement on Sunday that the criminal investigation would leave no stone unturned.
“The task is to piece together all findings and paint a picture of this perpetrator, who does not fit any existing mold,” Faeser said.
“This perpetrator acted in an unbelievably cruel and brutal manner — like an Islamist terrorist, although he was clearly ideologically hostile to Islam,” she added.
The suspect had been strongly critical of German authorities as well as Islam in the past.
He had voiced support on social media platform X for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and for US billionaire Elon Musk, who has backed the AfD.
The AfD has strong support in the former East Germany where Magdeburg is located. Opinion polls put it in second place nationally ahead of elections in February.
Its members, including the candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel, planned a rally in Magdeburg on Monday evening.
Saudi Arabia had repeatedly flagged to Germany concerns over posts on the suspect’s social media, according to a Saudi source and a German security source.
The Christian Democrats, Germany’s main opposition party, and the Free Democrats, who were part of the coalition government until its collapse last month, called for improvements to Germany’s security apparatus, including better coordination between federal and state authorities.
“The background must be clarified. But above all, we must do more to prevent such offenses, especially as there were obviously specific warnings and tips in this case that were ignored,” Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the leftist BSW party, told the Welt newspaper.
The BSW, a new political party with far-left roots, has also condemned unchecked immigration and has gained considerable support ahead of the Feb. 23 election.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose Social Democrats are trailing in opinion polls, attended a service for victims in Magdeburg’s cathedral on Saturday.