People Flee Escalating Violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine, Southern Chin States

The U.N. refugee agency says it is worried by reports of people fleeing escalating violence in Myanmar’s southern Chin State and Rakhine State, adding to growing instability in these regions.

The U.N. refugee agency says it cannot assess the scale of the current humanitarian situation in these volatile areas because it has little access to these and other regions in Myanmar.   

But the UNHCR says reports it has received of the deteriorating security situation in southern Chin State and Rakhine State are very worrying.  It says it does not know how many people have fled their homes and have become internally displaced since violence flared up there in December.

Additionally, in Rakhine State, UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said a number of Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh in search of asylum.

“We understand from some of the reports that some 200 people have sought shelter, have sought safety.  This is reportedly in a very remote area where we do not really have access,” he said. 

More than 720,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since August 2017 to escape persecution and violence in Myanmar.  Because of previous refugee crises in Myanmar, Bangladesh currently is home to nearly one million Rohingya refugees.

The UNHCR praises the country’s generosity and appeals to the authorities to continue to allow people fleeing violence in Myanmar to seek safety in Bangladesh.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is a predominantly Buddhist country.  It has a long history of tension with its ethnic minorities, much of it based on religion.  Southern Chin State is the only State in Myanmar with a Christian majority.  It also is the poorest and least developed region in the country.

The large Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State continues to suffer discrimination and repression from the majority Buddhist community.  Though they have lived in Myanmar for generations, the Rohingya are denied citizenship and remain stateless.

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Right-Wingers Rally in Madrid, Demand Socialist PM Resign

Thousands of Spaniards joined a right-wing rally in Madrid on Sunday to demand that Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez step down.

 

Many in the crowd gathered in the capital’s Plaza de Colon, waving Spanish flags. They chanted slogans in favor of the nation’s security forces and for Sanchez to resign.

 

The conservative opposition Popular Party and the center-right Citizens party organized the rally, which was also backed by the upstart far-right Vox and other marginal far-right parties. They claim that Sanchez must resign for holding talks with separatists in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

 

“The time of Sanchez’s government is over,” said Popular Party president Pablo Casado, who asked voters to punish Sanchez’s Socialists in upcoming European, local and regional elections in May.

 

The political tensions come as a highly sensitive trial at Spain’s Supreme Court starts Tuesday for 12 Catalan separatists who face charges, including rebellion, for their roles in a failed secession attempt in 2017.

 

Sanchez inherited the Catalan crisis from former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the then-leader of the Popular Party. Rajoy proved incapable of stopping support for secession from swelling in Catalonia to roughly half of the region’s voters.

 

Sanchez came to power in June promising to thaw tensions between central authorities in Madrid and the Catalan leaders in Barcelona. He has met twice with Catalan chief Quim Torra and members of both governments had several more encounters.

 

Sanchez had said he would be willing to help Catalan lawmakers agree to a new Charter Law, which determines the amount of self-rule the region enjoys. But Sanchez’s government broke off negotiations on Friday, when Vice President Carmen Calvo said the separatists wouldn’t budge from their demand for an independence referendum.

 

Sanchez is trying to cobble together support to pass a national budget and will need votes from the Catalan separatists to pass it.

Even though Sanchez has said he wants to see out the legislative term through 2020, a failure to win a budget vote will crank up the pressure on him to call for an early election.

 

 

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Booker Focuses on Race Relations in Initial 2020 White House Swing

U.S. Senator Cory Booker made the nation’s complicated history with race relations and racial disparities a focal point at events in the key state of Iowa during his first 2020 presidential campaign swing over the weekend.

Booker, 49, a former Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, frequently discussed incarceration and employment disparities, while also telling his parents’ story of trying to buy a house in an unintegrated New Jersey suburb in the late 1960s with the help of a volunteer civil rights lawyer.

Booker’s focus was an overture to the coalition of young, diverse voters that twice elected former Democratic President Barack Obama, while also differentiating his style from that of the first black U.S. president, who rarely discussed race during his campaign.

Booker’s emphasis on his personal and mayoral past, as well as his work as a senator on criminal justice issues, may also set him apart in a crowded field of Democratic candidates aiming to take on Republican President Donald Trump in what could be an historic election.

There are already four Democratic candidates vying to be the country’s first woman president, including U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, a former top prosecutor in the city of San Francisco and the state of California, who would also be the first black woman.

“Right here in Iowa, people meeting in barns — white folk and black folk — built the greatest infrastructure project this country has ever seen: the Underground Railroad,” Booker told a packed crowd at a brewery in Marshalltown, Iowa, on Saturday,

referring to a network of safe houses used to assist black Americans fleeing slavery states to free states ahead of and during the U.S. civil war in the 1860s.

In Iowa, which hosts the first presidential party-nominating contest, African Americans make up just 3.8 percent of the population, according to government statistics. But black voters are a crucial Democratic bloc in states like South Carolina, which also hosts an early nominating contest.

Booker’s trip to Iowa occurred as prominent Democratic officials in Virginia faced calls to resign due to past racist photos and sexual assault allegations. Booker is set to campaign in South Carolina on Sunday.

At a roundtable in Waterloo, Iowa, on Friday, two-thirds of the panelists Booker’s campaign assembled were African-American community leaders. A subsequent forum at the African American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids included Iowa City Council member Mazahir Salih, a Sudanese refugee.

Diane Lemker, 64, attended the Marshalltown brewery event and plans to participate in next year’s Democratic nominating caucuses for the first time. She liked Booker’s message of unity and inclusivity.

“Obama won the caucus in Iowa in 2008 and that’s what set him off — people couldn’t believe that a primarily white state would launch his candidacy and it did,” Lemker told Reuters.

Andrew Turner, an up-and-coming Democratic activist and strategist in Iowa who managed successful Des Moines City Council and state auditor races, said he thought Booker hit the right notes on his first trip to the state.

“He really got the rising leaders in the party,” Turner said of Booker’s campaign roundtables. “They crushed this.”

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May Urges UK Lawmakers: Give Me More Time to Get Brexit Deal

With Brexit just 47 days away, the British government asked lawmakers on Sunday to give Prime Minister Theresa May more time to rework her divorce deal with the European Union.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said Parliament would get to pass judgment on May’s Brexit plan “no later than Feb. 27.”

 

The promise is a bid to avert a showdown on Thursday, when Parliament is set to debate and vote on next moves in the Brexit process. Some lawmakers want to try to seize control and steer the country toward a softer exit from the bloc.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but Parliament has rejected May’s divorce bill, leaving the prime minister to seek changes from the EU. The U.K.’s bid for last-minute changes has exasperated EU leaders, who insist the legally binding withdrawal agreement can’t be changed.

The impasse risks a chaotic “no deal” departure for Britain, which could be painful for businesses and ordinary people on both sides of the Channel.

 

British businesses fear a no-deal Brexit will cause gridlock at ports by ripping up the trade rulebook and imposing tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

 

Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told the BBC that a “disorderly exit” was now the most likely option.

Opponents of the government accuse May of deliberately wasting time so that Parliament will face a last-minute choice between her deal and no deal.

 

Carolyn Fairbairn of business group the Confederation of British Industry said failure to secure a deal in good time was “negligence on behalf of our political institutions and leaders.”

    

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As Kagame Steps Down, Egypt Takes Helm at African Union

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who led an active, reformist tenure as African Union chair, on Sunday passes the baton to Egypt, seen as more likely to focus on security issues than expanding the powers of the body.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi will officially take over the post of ceremonial head of the AU which rotates between the five regions of the continent at the start of the two-day summit in Addis Ababa.

The meeting got underway after a ceremony inaugurating a commemorative statue of the late Ethiopian emperor Haileselassie I at the AU headquarters, in honor of his role in the formation of the continental body.

While multiple crises on the continent will be on the agenda of heads of state from the 55 member nations, the summit will also focus on institutional reforms, and the establishment of a continent-wide free trade zone.

The Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) was agreed by 44 nations in March 2018, but only 19 countries have ratified the agreement, with 22 needed for it to come into effect.

The single market is a flagship of the AU’s “Agenda 2063” programme, conceived as a strategic framework for socioeconomic transformation.

Cairo is backing the initiative, but analysts say it will be less likely to focus on the financial and administrative reforms pushed by Kagame.

Sisi is however expected to focus more on security, peacekeeping and post-war reconstruction, issues closely tied to the AU’s 2019 theme of “Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons”.

“Egypt has an interest in Africa, they want to strengthen their position on the African continent and they don’t want to be seen as a country only focused on the Arab world,” said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Saturday that peaceful elections in DR Congo, Mali and Madagascar, as well as peace deals in South Sudan and Central African Republic and the truce between Ethiopia and Eritrea, were signs of a “wind of hope” on the continent.

Resisting AU power

Kagame, who has been leading institutional reforms since 2016, pushed for a continent-wide import tax to fund the AU and reduce its dependence on external donors, who still pay for more than half the institution’s annual budget.

But member states have resisted this along with reform of the AU Commission, its executive organ. In November 2018, most states rejected a proposal to give the head of the AU Commission the power to name deputies and commissioners.

Like other regional heavyweights Nigeria and South Africa, Egypt is not keen on a powerful AU, an African diplomat told AFP.

This is especially because Cairo has “never forgotten” its suspension in 2013 after Egypt’s army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who in 2012 became the country’s first democratically elected president, the diplomat said.

“Traditionally, leaders of big powers have not really helped the position of AU chairperson, as they don’t want an AU which is too strong or too intrusive,” said Elissa Jobson of the International Crisis Group.

“The AU and the AU commission are only as strong as its members want them to be. Unlike the EU, African countries have not transferred some of their sovereignty to the AU.”

Kagame suffered a crushing blow from the AU after expressing “serious doubts” about the results of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s recent presidential election, which was officially won by Felix Tshisekedi.

While also disputed by the Catholic church, the results were validated by DRC’s constitutional court and saluted by continental heavyweights South Africa, Kenya and Egypt.

“This whole thing was an embarrassment for the AU, it showed the limitations of what the AU chairperson can do,” said Jobson.

Amnesty International expressed fears that Egypt’s chairmanship could undermine human rights mechanisms in the AU.

“During his time in power President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has demonstrated a shocking contempt for human rights. Under his leadership the country has undergone a catastrophic decline in rights and freedoms,” said Najia Bounaim, Amnesty’s North Africa Campaigns Director.

 

 

 

 

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Brexit Lessons in Norway’s Hard Border with Sweden

With fresh snow crunching under their boots and a handful of papers to be checked and stamped, truck drivers from Latvia, Sweden and Poland make their way across Norway’s Orje customs station to a small office where their goods will be cleared out of the European Union and into Norway.

While many border posts in Europe have vanished, Norway’s hard border with the European Union is clearly visible, with cameras, license-plate recognition systems and barriers directing traffic to customs officers.

Norway’s membership in the European Economic Area (EEA) grants it access to the EU’s vast common market and most goods are exempt from paying duties. Still, everything entering the country must be declared and cleared through customs.

Technological solutions being tested in Norway to digitalize customs procedures for cargo have been seized on by some in Britain as a way to overcome border-related problems that threaten to scuttle a divorce deal with the EU. But the realities of this northern border also show the difficulties that persist.

​Brexit and the Irish border

A divorce deal between Britain and the EU has stumbled over how to guarantee an open border between the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland after Britain leaves the bloc March 29.

The Irish border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland that cost 3,700 lives. The free flow of people and goods across the near-invisible Irish border now underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland’s peace process.

The EU’s proposed solution is for Britain to remain in a customs union with the bloc, eliminating the need for checks until another solution is found. But pro-Brexit British politicians say that would stop the U.K. from forging new trade deals around the world.

​Can technology save the day?

Technology may or may not be the answer, depending on whom you talk to.

“Everyone agrees that we have to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, and … technology will play a big part in doing so,” said Northern Ireland Minister John Penrose.

But EU deputy Brexit negotiator Sabine Weyand said on Twitter: “Can technology solve the Irish border problem? Short answer: not in the next few years.”

The Customs office at Orje, on the road connecting the capitals of Oslo and Stockholm, has been testing a new digital clearance system to speed goods through customs by enabling exporters to submit information online up to two hours before a truck reaches the border.

At her desk in Orje, Chief Customs officer Nina Bullock was handling traditional paper border clearance forms when her computer informed her of an incoming truck that used the Express Clearance system.

“We know the truck number, we know the driver, we know what kinds of goods, we know everything,” she told The Associated Press. “It will pass by the two cameras and go on. It’s doesn’t need to come into the office.”

That allows Customs officers to conduct risk assessments before the vehicle even reaches the border.

​Pilot project has glitches

So far, 10 Swedish companies are in the pilot project, representing just a handful of the 400-450 trucks that cross at this border post each day. But if it’s successful, the plan will be expanded.

In the six months since the trial began, Customs section chief Hakon Krogh says some problems have brought the system to a standstill, from snow blocking the camera, to Wi-Fi issues preventing the border barrier from lifting, to truck drivers who misunderstand which customs lane to use.

“It’s a pilot program, so it takes time to make things work smoothly before it can be expanded,” said Krogh, who still felt the program could have a long-term benefit.

The program also limits flexibility for exporters. If a driver calls in sick and is replaced by another, or extra cargo is added to a shipment, then all the paperwork must be resubmitted online.

Real barrier is complex trade

Yet a greater barrier to digitalizing the border is the complexity of international trade.

The Svinesund customs office, 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Orje, is Norway’s major road border, with 1,300 trucks each day carrying goods into the country from across Europe. Customs section chief Kristen Hoiberget has been following the Orje pilot program with interest but warns of systematic challenges to its expansion.

“It’s very easy to deal with a digital system when the goods are uniform,” Hoiberget said. “If you have one kind of goods in a lorry, it’s less complicated. But if you have a lorry that picks up goods at 10 different places abroad, the complexity arises rapidly.”

He said most of the export information needed is available digitally, but Customs, clearance houses and exporters all use different computer systems.

“There are a lot of prerequisites to a digital border,” he said. “A frictionless border would need development and lots of legislation.”

​Customs officers aren’t going away

Back in Orje, vehicles entering Norway are randomly checked, with officers mainly looking for alcohol and cigarettes, which are cheaper in Sweden. Border changes are coming, but certainly not in the tight two-month timeframe that any Brexit border changes would need.

“If you look 15 years ahead, I guess this office won’t be here. I won’t be sitting here stamping papers,” Bullock said. “But customs officers will still be on duty, to prevent goods coming into Norway that are not supposed to.”

As an AP journalist waited in the snow to watch a truck at Orje use the Express Clearance lane, a truck driver made his way across a large parking lot to the customs office.

“You must be doing a Brexit story,” he joked. “They’ll be in the same boat soon.”

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South Korea, US Reach Payment Deal on US Troops

Officials signed a short-term agreement Sunday to boost South Korea’s contribution toward the upkeep of U.S. troops on the peninsula, after a previous deal lapsed amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the South to pay more.

The new deal must still be approved by South Korea’s parliament, but it would boost its contribution to 1.03 trillion won ($890 million) from 960 billion won in 2018.

Unlike past agreements, which lasted for five years, this one is scheduled to expire in a year, potentially forcing both sides back to the bargaining table within months.

“It has been a very long process, but ultimately a very successful process,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told reporters before another official from the foreign ministry initialed the agreement.

​Domestic criticism

While acknowledging lingering domestic criticism of the new deal and the need for parliamentary approval, Kang said the response had “been positive so far.”

U.S. State Department senior adviser for security negotiations and agreements, Timothy Betts, met Kang before signing the agreement on behalf of the United States, and told reporters the money represented a small but important part of South Korea’s support for the alliance.

“The United States government realizes that South Korea does a lot for our alliance and for peace and stability in this region,” he said.

​28,500 US troops

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, where the United States has maintained a military presence since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The allies had struggled to reach a breakthrough despite 10 rounds of talks since March, amid Trump’s repeated calls for a sharp increase in South Korea’s contribution.

South Korean officials have said they had sought to limit its burden to $1 trillion won and make the accord valid for at least three years.

A senior South Korean ruling party legislator said last month that negotiations were deadlocked after the United States made a “sudden, unacceptable” demand that Seoul pay more than 1.4 trillion won per year.

But both sides worked to reach a deal to minimize the impact of the lapse on South Korean workers on U.S. military bases, and focus on nuclear talks ahead of a second U.S.-North Korea summit, Seoul officials said.

The disagreement had raised the prospect that Trump could decide to withdraw at least some troops from South Korea, as he has in other countries like Syria. But on Sunday, South Korean officials told Yonhap news agency that the United States had affirmed it would not be changing its troop presence.

Trump said in his annual State of the Union address to Congress he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, following their unprecedented meeting in June in Singapore.

Military exercises suspended

After the June summit, Trump announced a halt to joint military exercises with South Korea, saying they were expensive and paid for mostly by the United States.

Major joint exercises have been suspended, but some small-scale drills have continued, earning rebukes from North Korea’s state media in recent months.

About 70 percent of South Korea’s contribution covers the salaries of some 8,700 South Korean employees who provide administrative, technical and other services for the U.S. military.

Late last year, the U.S. military warned Korean workers on its bases they might be put on leave from mid-April if no deal was agreed.

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South Korea, US Reach Payment Deal on US Troops

Officials signed a short-term agreement Sunday to boost South Korea’s contribution toward the upkeep of U.S. troops on the peninsula, after a previous deal lapsed amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the South to pay more.

The new deal must still be approved by South Korea’s parliament, but it would boost its contribution to 1.03 trillion won ($890 million) from 960 billion won in 2018.

Unlike past agreements, which lasted for five years, this one is scheduled to expire in a year, potentially forcing both sides back to the bargaining table within months.

“It has been a very long process, but ultimately a very successful process,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told reporters before another official from the foreign ministry initialed the agreement.

​Domestic criticism

While acknowledging lingering domestic criticism of the new deal and the need for parliamentary approval, Kang said the response had “been positive so far.”

U.S. State Department senior adviser for security negotiations and agreements, Timothy Betts, met Kang before signing the agreement on behalf of the United States, and told reporters the money represented a small but important part of South Korea’s support for the alliance.

“The United States government realizes that South Korea does a lot for our alliance and for peace and stability in this region,” he said.

​28,500 US troops

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, where the United States has maintained a military presence since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The allies had struggled to reach a breakthrough despite 10 rounds of talks since March, amid Trump’s repeated calls for a sharp increase in South Korea’s contribution.

South Korean officials have said they had sought to limit its burden to $1 trillion won and make the accord valid for at least three years.

A senior South Korean ruling party legislator said last month that negotiations were deadlocked after the United States made a “sudden, unacceptable” demand that Seoul pay more than 1.4 trillion won per year.

But both sides worked to reach a deal to minimize the impact of the lapse on South Korean workers on U.S. military bases, and focus on nuclear talks ahead of a second U.S.-North Korea summit, Seoul officials said.

The disagreement had raised the prospect that Trump could decide to withdraw at least some troops from South Korea, as he has in other countries like Syria. But on Sunday, South Korean officials told Yonhap news agency that the United States had affirmed it would not be changing its troop presence.

Trump said in his annual State of the Union address to Congress he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, following their unprecedented meeting in June in Singapore.

Military exercises suspended

After the June summit, Trump announced a halt to joint military exercises with South Korea, saying they were expensive and paid for mostly by the United States.

Major joint exercises have been suspended, but some small-scale drills have continued, earning rebukes from North Korea’s state media in recent months.

About 70 percent of South Korea’s contribution covers the salaries of some 8,700 South Korean employees who provide administrative, technical and other services for the U.S. military.

Late last year, the U.S. military warned Korean workers on its bases they might be put on leave from mid-April if no deal was agreed.

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South Korea Agrees to Pay More for US Troops

Officials signed a short-term agreement Sunday to boost South Korea’s contribution toward the upkeep of U.S. troops on the peninsula, after a previous deal lapsed amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the South to pay more.

The new deal must still be approved by South Korea’s parliament, but it would boost its contribution to 1.03 trillion won ($890 million) from 960 billion won in 2018.

Unlike past agreements, which lasted for five years, this one is scheduled to expire in a year, potentially forcing both sides back to the bargaining table within months.

“It has been a very long process, but ultimately a very successful process,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told reporters before another official from the foreign ministry initialed the agreement.

​Domestic criticism

While acknowledging lingering domestic criticism of the new deal and the need for parliamentary approval, Kang said the response had “been positive so far.”

U.S. State Department senior adviser for security negotiations and agreements, Timothy Betts, met Kang before signing the agreement on behalf of the United States, and told reporters the money represented a small but important part of South Korea’s support for the alliance.

“The United States government realizes that South Korea does a lot for our alliance and for peace and stability in this region,” he said.

​28,500 US troops

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, where the United States has maintained a military presence since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The allies had struggled to reach a breakthrough despite 10 rounds of talks since March, amid Trump’s repeated calls for a sharp increase in South Korea’s contribution.

South Korean officials have said they had sought to limit its burden to $1 trillion won and make the accord valid for at least three years.

A senior South Korean ruling party legislator said last month that negotiations were deadlocked after the United States made a “sudden, unacceptable” demand that Seoul pay more than 1.4 trillion won per year.

But both sides worked to reach a deal to minimize the impact of the lapse on South Korean workers on U.S. military bases, and focus on nuclear talks ahead of a second U.S.-North Korea summit, Seoul officials said.

The disagreement had raised the prospect that Trump could decide to withdraw at least some troops from South Korea, as he has in other countries like Syria. But on Sunday, South Korean officials told Yonhap news agency that the United States had affirmed it would not be changing its troop presence.

Trump said in his annual State of the Union address to Congress he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, following their unprecedented meeting in June in Singapore.

Military exercises suspended

After the June summit, Trump announced a halt to joint military exercises with South Korea, saying they were expensive and paid for mostly by the United States.

Major joint exercises have been suspended, but some small-scale drills have continued, earning rebukes from North Korea’s state media in recent months.

About 70 percent of South Korea’s contribution covers the salaries of some 8,700 South Korean employees who provide administrative, technical and other services for the U.S. military.

Late last year, the U.S. military warned Korean workers on its bases they might be put on leave from mid-April if no deal was agreed.

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US, China Face Off Over Legacy in Cambodia

Almost half a century ago, the U.S.-backed Gen. Lon Nol led a coup in March 1970, overthrowing Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk while the monarch visited Moscow.

Sihanouk took refuge in Beijing until 1975, when brutal Khmer Rouge guerrillas leading a resistance movement against Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic captured Phnom Penh on April 17 and took over the country.

Sihanouk initially supported the Khmer Rouge regime and was installed as head of state by the communists but resigned in 1976. He spent the rest of the regime as a de facto prisoner of the Khmer Rouge, which wreaked havoc on the country, killing or starving to death an estimated 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979.

​Echoes of the Cold War

Today, that sequence of events reverberates in a diplomatic face-off in Phnom Penh that echoes the Cold War even as it has gone viral in Cambodia. The online skirmish began when the U.S. Embassy posted a statement on its Facebook page, Jan. 30, saying the Khmer Rouge “ignorantly depended on a superpower,” an apparent reference to China. The embassy later issued comments claiming Washington was not involved in the coup led by Lon Nol that ousted Sihanouk.

“Instead, there is a lot of evidence showing that [the] Chinese government actively supported [the] Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979 and after that,” read a post by the U.S. Embassy.

In response, the Chinese Embassy posted a statement on its Facebook page, Feb. 1, mocking the idea that the coup “was not related to the U.S., but the CIA.”

Elizabeth Becker, author of When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, said the current tit-for-tat was “a distorted argument started by the Hun Sen government.”

“The subject is too serious for these propaganda potshots,” she wrote VOA Khmer in an email. “Both China and the U.S. have blood on their hands.”

​War of words

Chheang Vannarith, president of the Asian Vision Institute (AVI), an independent think tank based in Phnom Penh, said the current war of words is another indication that the U.S.-China competition in Cambodia will continue to intensify.

“I think Cambodia has become the proxy of U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry,” he said in an email. “The winner writes history. It is … real politics.”

Meas Nee, a political analyst who holds a doctorate in sociology and international social work from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said Cambodia should be cautious of falling into a trap if a new Cold War emerges.

“Those two superpowers can take advantage” of a vulnerable country like Cambodia, he said, adding that Phnom Penh’s closeness with Beijing makes it unlikely to take a stand. China is Cambodia’s largest aid donor.

Although many consider the U.S. involvement to be a matter of historical record, Emily Zeeberg, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, told VOA Khmer that there was “no evidence that the United States was involved in the coup that brought Lon Nol to power.”

“The United States has addressed its war legacy by long-standing and substantial efforts for humanitarian demining and removing unexploded ordnance (UXO), including the removal of hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made mines, which have injured and killed people for decades,” she said in an email.

“We hope the Chinese government will acknowledge its legacy in Cambodia and make amends to all the Cambodians its policies affected,” Zeeberg added.

Repeated efforts to reach the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia were unsuccessful.

Phay Siphan, a Cambodian government spokesman, could not be reached for comment.

Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement issued last week that Cambodia had suffered from a civil war that arose from “a coup supported by United States in 1970.”

“Cambodia doesn’t want to see the same history, as Cambodia has full peace,” it read.

‘Supporting the Khmer Rouge’

Sophal Ear, associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College at Los Angeles, said: “It looks like the U.S. Embassy simply reminded Cambodia of who was supporting the Khmer Rouge at their height of power-1975-1979.”

“Indeed, with the withdrawal of the U.S., the Khmer Republic collapsed,” he added.

“China and the Khmer Rouge were brothers in arms,” he said. “Cambodia has always been a sideshow to the great powers. Just because some Facebook posts and statements have been made does not amount to a hill of beans. Let’s not get delusional here.”

​Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is a close ally of Beijing, has said several times that the United States backed Lon Nol to topple Sihanouk from power, leading to a bitter civil war.

A staunch anti-communist, Lon Nol ruled over what was declared the Khmer Republic, presiding over the buildup of the Cambodian army from a force of 37,000 to more than 150,000. U.S. aid funded the expansion as American aircraft resumed bombing Cambodia, and ground troops entered the country in a covert war, assisted by South Vietnamese forces.

On April 1, 1975, two weeks before the Khmer Rouge overran Phnom Penh, Lon Nol boarded a helicopter, escaping with his family to Thailand before settling in the U.S. He lived quietly in Hawaii, before moving to Fullerton, Calif., where he died in 1985.

Sihanouk called on Cambodians to fight against the U.S.-backed Lon Nol regime to bring him back to power, but the regime that sprang up from this conflict was more brutal than Cambodian soldiers could have imagined.

In an interview with VOA Khmer, Lon Rith, Nol’s son and the president of the Khmer Republic party, defended his father, saying, “It was a collective decision to remove the king and it was not really a coup.”

“I don’t take sides with Lon Nol because he is my father. But I wanted to say it is the truth for our history,” he said.

He said the ouster was to protect Cambodia by getting the North Vietnamese out of Cambodia. 

“They asked the king to return and negotiated to ask the Vietcong to leave the country, but he didn’t come,” he said.

Superpowers involved

Diep Sophal, a history lecturer who wrote The Causes of the Cambodian War in 2018, said the superpower countries were trying to “not to take any responsibility, both legally and ethically. … I think [American support] was a kind of psychological approach and encouragement.”

Becker, whose reporting from Cambodia led to her being called to testify for the prosecution at the international criminal tribunal of the Khmer Rouge for genocide, cut through the factions.

“Here is the truth: The U.S. did not engineer the 1970 overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. However, the U.S. did favor his overthrow and then did underwrite the government of Lon Nol throughout the 1970-1975 war. With U.S. money and military support, including the saturation bombing, the Lon Nol government fought the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge.

“China supported the Khmer Rouge during the 1970-1975 war and was the sole critical supporter throughout the 1975-1979 Democratic Kampuchea period of genocide. With Chinese money and support, Pol Pot carried out the period of murder, starvation and brutality.”

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Thai King Dashes Sister’s Political Dreams

Thailand’s king has crushed the plans of his older sister to become a candidate for the country’s prime minister.

The Thai Raksa Chart party had announced Friday that Princess Ubolratana, who is 67, would be the party’s prime minister nominee for the March 24 election.

The political hopes of the princess were dashed almost immediately when her younger brother, the king, issued a terse statement saying his sister’s candidacy was “highly inappropriate” and went against tradition and national culture.

On Saturday, the Thai Raksa Chart party swore loyalty to the king, saying in a statement that it “complies with the royal command.”

Puangthong Pawakapan, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University, told the French news agency AFP that the king’s disapproval invalidated his sister’s candidacy.

In an Instagram post Saturday, the princess, without mentioning her brother or her dashed political plans, thanked her supporters for their “love and kindness” and expressed a desire to see the country expand rights and opportunities for citizens.

Thailand will hold elections on March 24, the first since a 2014 military coup. The takeover resulted in the installation of a junta intent on eradicating the influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose allies have won every national election since 2001.

Since Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006, Thailand’s establishment has had little success in trying to weaken his political machine with constitutional amendments, court rulings and changes to the electoral system.  

Thaksin, who has been in exile to avoid a jail sentence on a conflict of interest conviction, is believed by many to have played a role in establishing Ubolratana’s candidacy. His alleged involvement rattled royalists who see their campaign against Thaksin as a way to protect the monarchy.

As a candidate, Ubolratana would have attempted to oust junta leader and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the preferred choice of the military.

Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932.

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Thai King Dashes Sister’s Political Dreams

Thailand’s king has crushed the plans of his older sister to become a candidate for the country’s prime minister.

The Thai Raksa Chart party had announced Friday that Princess Ubolratana, who is 67, would be the party’s prime minister nominee for the March 24 election.

The political hopes of the princess were dashed almost immediately when her younger brother, the king, issued a terse statement saying his sister’s candidacy was “highly inappropriate” and went against tradition and national culture.

On Saturday, the Thai Raksa Chart party swore loyalty to the king, saying in a statement that it “complies with the royal command.”

Puangthong Pawakapan, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University, told the French news agency AFP that the king’s disapproval invalidated his sister’s candidacy.

In an Instagram post Saturday, the princess, without mentioning her brother or her dashed political plans, thanked her supporters for their “love and kindness” and expressed a desire to see the country expand rights and opportunities for citizens.

Thailand will hold elections on March 24, the first since a 2014 military coup. The takeover resulted in the installation of a junta intent on eradicating the influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose allies have won every national election since 2001.

Since Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006, Thailand’s establishment has had little success in trying to weaken his political machine with constitutional amendments, court rulings and changes to the electoral system.  

Thaksin, who has been in exile to avoid a jail sentence on a conflict of interest conviction, is believed by many to have played a role in establishing Ubolratana’s candidacy. His alleged involvement rattled royalists who see their campaign against Thaksin as a way to protect the monarchy.

As a candidate, Ubolratana would have attempted to oust junta leader and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the preferred choice of the military.

Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932.

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Warren Makes Presidential Bid Official With Call for Change

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her bid for the presidency official on Saturday in this working-class city, grounding her 2020 campaign in a populist call to fight economic inequality and build “an America that works for everyone.”

Warren delivered a sharp call for change at her presidential kickoff, decrying a “middle-class squeeze” that has left Americans crunched with “too little accountability for the rich, too little opportunity for everyone else.” She and her backers hope that message can distinguish her in a crowded Democratic field and help her move past the controversy surrounding her past claims to Native American heritage.

Weaving specific policy prescriptions into her remarks, from Medicare for All to the elimination of Washington “lobbying as we know it,” Warren avoided taking direct jabs at President Donald Trump. She aimed for a broader institutional shift instead, urging supporters to choose “a government that makes different choices, choices that reflect our values.”

Warren announced her campaign in her home state of Massachusetts at a mill site where largely immigrant factory workers went on strike about 100 years ago, a fitting forum for the longtime consumer advocate to advance her platform.

She was scheduled to travel later in the day to New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primary, where Warren could have an advantage as a neighboring-state resident with high name recognition. She intended to spend Sunday in Iowa, where the leadoff caucuses will be the first test of candidates’ viability.

Warren was the first high-profile Democrat to signal interest in running for the White House, forming an exploratory committee on New Year’s Eve.

She was introduced Saturday by Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., who has endorsed her in the primary. The backing could prove valuable for Warren, given his status as a rising young Democratic star and his friendship with one of her potential 2020 rivals, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas.

Warren enters the race as one of the party’s most recognizable figures. She has spent the past decade in the national spotlight, first emerging as a consumer activist during the financial crisis. She later led the congressional panel that oversaw the 2008 financial industry bailout. After Republicans blocked her from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create, she ran for the Senate in 2012 and unseated a GOP incumbent.

She has $11 million left over from her commanding 2018 Senate re-election victory that can be used on her presidential run.

Still, Warren must compete against other popular Democrats who will be able to raise substantial money. A recent CNN poll found that fewer Democrats said they’d be very likely to support Warren if she runs than said the same of former Vice President Joe Biden or Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Still, about as many Democrats said they’d be at least somewhat likely to support Warren as said the same of Harris or Sanders.

That challenge is on display this weekend as Democratic presidential contenders — or those considering a run — fan out across the crucial early-voting states. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is in Iowa, while New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is visiting South Carolina. Another possible presidential rival, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, planned to be in New Hampshire on Saturday.

And Warren’s launch comes at a challenging moment for the 69-year-old senator. She’s apologized twice over the past two weeks for claiming Native American identity on multiple occasions early in her career. That claim has created fodder for Republicans and could overshadow her campaign.

The campaign launch will test whether the controversy is simply a Washington obsession or a substantive threat to her candidacy. Doug Rubin, a Boston-based strategist who advised Warren during her first Senate run in 2012, said in an interview that most voters will respond to “the powerful message she’s been talking about,” in terms of battling social and economic injustices, rather than the back-and-forth over her personal identity.

Another threat could come from a fellow senator who has yet to announce his own plans for 2020: Sanders. They’re both leaders of the Democrats’ liberal vanguard, but some Sanders supporters are still upset she didn’t support him during his 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton. And as a senator from Vermont who won the New Hampshire primary, he would likely go into the Granite State as an early favorite if he decided to run again.

Despite their similarities, Warren and Sanders have taken somewhat divergent paths in recent months as they prepare for the primary. After proposing an “ultra-millionaire tax” that would hit the wealthiest 75,000 households in America, Warren told Bloomberg News last week that she continues to “believe in capitalism” but wants to see stricter rules to prevent gaming the system — a marked contrast with the self-described democratic socialism of Sanders.

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Warren Makes Presidential Bid Official With Call for Change

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her bid for the presidency official on Saturday in this working-class city, grounding her 2020 campaign in a populist call to fight economic inequality and build “an America that works for everyone.”

Warren delivered a sharp call for change at her presidential kickoff, decrying a “middle-class squeeze” that has left Americans crunched with “too little accountability for the rich, too little opportunity for everyone else.” She and her backers hope that message can distinguish her in a crowded Democratic field and help her move past the controversy surrounding her past claims to Native American heritage.

Weaving specific policy prescriptions into her remarks, from Medicare for All to the elimination of Washington “lobbying as we know it,” Warren avoided taking direct jabs at President Donald Trump. She aimed for a broader institutional shift instead, urging supporters to choose “a government that makes different choices, choices that reflect our values.”

Warren announced her campaign in her home state of Massachusetts at a mill site where largely immigrant factory workers went on strike about 100 years ago, a fitting forum for the longtime consumer advocate to advance her platform.

She was scheduled to travel later in the day to New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primary, where Warren could have an advantage as a neighboring-state resident with high name recognition. She intended to spend Sunday in Iowa, where the leadoff caucuses will be the first test of candidates’ viability.

Warren was the first high-profile Democrat to signal interest in running for the White House, forming an exploratory committee on New Year’s Eve.

She was introduced Saturday by Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., who has endorsed her in the primary. The backing could prove valuable for Warren, given his status as a rising young Democratic star and his friendship with one of her potential 2020 rivals, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas.

Warren enters the race as one of the party’s most recognizable figures. She has spent the past decade in the national spotlight, first emerging as a consumer activist during the financial crisis. She later led the congressional panel that oversaw the 2008 financial industry bailout. After Republicans blocked her from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create, she ran for the Senate in 2012 and unseated a GOP incumbent.

She has $11 million left over from her commanding 2018 Senate re-election victory that can be used on her presidential run.

Still, Warren must compete against other popular Democrats who will be able to raise substantial money. A recent CNN poll found that fewer Democrats said they’d be very likely to support Warren if she runs than said the same of former Vice President Joe Biden or Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Still, about as many Democrats said they’d be at least somewhat likely to support Warren as said the same of Harris or Sanders.

That challenge is on display this weekend as Democratic presidential contenders — or those considering a run — fan out across the crucial early-voting states. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is in Iowa, while New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is visiting South Carolina. Another possible presidential rival, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, planned to be in New Hampshire on Saturday.

And Warren’s launch comes at a challenging moment for the 69-year-old senator. She’s apologized twice over the past two weeks for claiming Native American identity on multiple occasions early in her career. That claim has created fodder for Republicans and could overshadow her campaign.

The campaign launch will test whether the controversy is simply a Washington obsession or a substantive threat to her candidacy. Doug Rubin, a Boston-based strategist who advised Warren during her first Senate run in 2012, said in an interview that most voters will respond to “the powerful message she’s been talking about,” in terms of battling social and economic injustices, rather than the back-and-forth over her personal identity.

Another threat could come from a fellow senator who has yet to announce his own plans for 2020: Sanders. They’re both leaders of the Democrats’ liberal vanguard, but some Sanders supporters are still upset she didn’t support him during his 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton. And as a senator from Vermont who won the New Hampshire primary, he would likely go into the Granite State as an early favorite if he decided to run again.

Despite their similarities, Warren and Sanders have taken somewhat divergent paths in recent months as they prepare for the primary. After proposing an “ultra-millionaire tax” that would hit the wealthiest 75,000 households in America, Warren told Bloomberg News last week that she continues to “believe in capitalism” but wants to see stricter rules to prevent gaming the system — a marked contrast with the self-described democratic socialism of Sanders.

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Top Commander on Russia in Venezuela: ‘Anything’s Possible’

The United States should not rule out Russian military involvement in Venezuela, according to the new head of U.S. Southern Command. Speaking exclusively in his first in-depth interview since taking command, Navy Admiral Craig Faller told VOA that Russia was acting like a “wounded, declining bear that’s just lashing out” against democratic interests in the region.

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7 Get Life in Prison for Tunisia’s 2015 Terror Attacks

A lawyer says Tunisian authorities have given seven suspects life in prison and handed out other sentences in the trial over two separate 2015 attacks in Tunisia that killed some 60 people, mainly tourists.

Samir Ben Amor, the lawyer for one of the 44 defendants, said the verdicts were handed down Saturday for the deadly attack against the country’s famous Bardo Museum and a massacre at a popular seaside resort.

He says other defendants received jail terms ranging from 16 years to six months, while the charges against 27 of the suspects were dismissed. No one got the maximum penalty of capital punishment.

Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the attacks, which, along with an attack on the Imperial Hotel, devastated the country’s vital tourism sector and prompted foreign governments to issue travel warnings for Tunisia.

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