27/03/2025

THURSDAY | MAR 27, 2025

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‘China poses biggest military, cyber threat to US’

Indonesia hands over seized land to state firm

JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities will hand over more land that has been seized in probes into illegal plantations to new state company Agrinas Palma Nusantara, officials said yesterday, as part of a push to clean up the industry’s global image. Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producer, launched an anti-corruption effort this year, facing criticism that oil palm plantations are a major driver of deforestation. Prosecutors yesterday handed over to Agrinas 216,997ha confiscated from 109 companies, Attorney General official Febrie Adriansyah said, adding to more than 221,000ha handed over earlier this month. Agrinas is expected to continue running the plantations. “Agrinas Palma must be ready with their leadership to make sure the production will not drop, and should even be increased,” said Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who is leading the forest management effort, adding that Agrinas would be assisted by other state plantation firms. In January, President Prabowo Subianto set up a group to punish companies operating in forest areas without permits. The task force is allowed to seize the land, including palm oil plantations operating in forest-designated areas. The plantations being given to Agrinas were part of an area of around 1 million hectares the task force has confiscated. – Reuters Sri Lanka to sack jailed police chief COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s ruling party said on Tuesday it would sack the island nation’s police chief, who is in custody awaiting trial over a botched drug raid that resulted in an officer’s death. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s ruling coalition submitted a resolution to that effect in parliament, beginning a lengthy legal process to dismiss Inspector-General Deshabandu Tennakoon. “We hope the speaker will act promptly on the resolution,” said Deputy Labour Minister Mahinda Jayasinghe. “We want him removed on four counts: corruption, misconduct, abuse of power and gross partiality in office.” Dissanayake is required to address parliament before appointing a three member panel to investigate the allegations. If Tennakoon is found guilty, an absolute majority of lawmakers must endorse his removal. Dissanayake’s leftist National People Power coalition has the numbers to comfortably remove Tennakoon after a landslide election victory last year. The police chief turned himself in to authorities last week after more than a fortnight on the run from an arrest warrant. He stands accused of authorising a drug bust in 2023, which triggered a gun battle in the southern town of Weligama. One police officer was killed and another wounded in the incident. – AFP

“There is nothing to prevent China from cracking down on fentanyl precursors,” Ratcliffe said. The spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said the US has long “hyped up” the China threat as an excuse to maintain US military hegemony. “China is determined to be a force for peace, stability and progress in the world, and also determined to defend our national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” Liu said, adding that “fentanyl abuse is a problem that the United States must confront and resolve”. The intelligence agencies said Iran was committed to developing surrogate networks inside the US and to targeting officials. While Iran continued to improve its domestically produced missile and UAV systems and arm a consortium of “like-minded actors”, they said, the US continues to assess that Tehran “is not building a nuclear weapon”. US concerns about China dominated about a third of the 33-page report, which said Beijing was set to increase military and economic coercion towards Taiwan. The report said China faces “daunting” domestic challenges, including corruption, demographic imbalances, and fiscal and economic headwinds that could impair the Communist Party’s legitimacy. – Reuters

planned to use large language models to create fake news, imitate personas and enable attack networks. “China’s military is fielding advanced capabilities, including hypersonic weapons, stealth aircraft, advanced submarines, stronger space and cyber warfare assets and a larger arsenal of nuclear weapons,” director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the committee. She labelled Beijing as Washington’s “most capable strategic competitor”. “China almost certainly has a national-level strategy designed to displace the United States as the world’s most influential AI power by 2030,” the report said. CIA director John Ratcliffe told the committee that China had made only “intermittent” efforts to curtail the flow of precursor chemicals fuelling the fentanyl crisis due to its reluctance to crack down on lucrative Chinese businesses. Trump has increased tariffs on Chinese imports by 20% to punish Beijing for what Trump called its failure to halt shipments of fentanyl chemicals. China has denied playing a role in the crisis, the leading cause of US drug overdose deaths. The issue has become a major point of friction between the administration and Beijing.

o Intel chiefs say Beijing aims to lead world in AI

WASHINGTON: China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US, according to a report by US intelligence agencies published on Tuesday that said Beijing was making “steady but uneven” progress on capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan. China has the ability to hit the US with conventional weapons; compromise US infrastructure through cyber attacks; and target its assets in space, the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community said, adding that Beijing also seeks to displace the US as the top AI power by 2030. Russia, along with Iran, North Korea and China, seeks to challenge the US through deliberate campaigns to gain an advantage, with Moscow’s war in Ukraine affording a “wealth of lessons regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in a large scale war”, the report said. Released ahead of testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by President Donald Trump’s intelligence chiefs, the report said People’s Liberation Army (PLA) likely After a two-day censure debate in which the opposition attacked 38-year-old Paetongtarn’s management and her inexperience, MPs voted down the no-confidence motion by 319 votes to 162, with seven abstentions. Paetongtarn thanked her supporters after winning the vote. “All votes, both for and against, will be a force driving me and the Cabinet to carry on working hard for the people,” she wrote on Facebook. Thaksin, the most influential but controversial politician of modern Thai history, returned to the kingdom in 2023 after 15 years of self-exile. He served a few months of an eight-year jail sentence for historic graft and abuse of power charges in a police hospital before being pardoned by the king, fuelling rumours of a backroom deal to treat him leniently. The 75-year-old remains popular among millions of poorer Thais who prospered under his 2001-2006 rule, but he is despised by the kingdom’s conservative elite who regard him as corrupt and manipulative. Paetongtarn became prime minister last year at the head of a coalition government led by the Pheu Thai party, the latest incarnation of the political movement founded by Thaksin, after the incumbent Srettha Thavisin was thrown out by a court order. During the censure debate Rangsiman Rome,

Thai PM sails through no-confidence vote BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra survived a no-confidence vote in parliament yesterday, defeating a challenge from opposition parties which accused her of being a puppet of her father, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Paetongtarn records her win in parliament yesterday. – AFPPIC

out that she became prime minister several months after her father’s royal pardon. Opposition MPs also accused Paetongtarn of avoiding tax and of mishandling the case of 40 Uyghurs sent back to China late last month. The repatriation of the Uyghurs sparked international condemnation and led to Washington imposing visa bans on some Thai officials. – AFP

an outspoken lawmaker with the main opposition People’s Party, accused Paetongtarn of engineering preferential treatment for her father. “You made a deal, a demon deal, to get your father better conditions than other prisoners. The condition was your father will not be in jail for a single day,” he said in parliament. Paetongtarn denied the allegation, pointing

Unidentified men abduct Pakistani journalist ISLAMABAD: A journalist was kidnapped from his home here early yesterday, his family and lawyer said. Pakistan’s powerful military, which analysts say is involved in the country’s politics and economy. “Around 20 unidentified individuals stormed the house and forcibly took him away, without presenting any warrant,” Abida Nawaz said.

The latest kidnapping came after Farhan Mallick, founder of Pakistani internet media channel Raftar, was arrested last week on charges of “anti-state posts and fake news”. It came in the same week the brothers of exiled journalist Ahmad Noorani were kidnapped from their family home after he wrote about the growing influence of the powerful military chief’s family. – AFP

“The pattern of his abduction was the same as in the past,” Imaan Mazari said. “The abductors, their modus operandi and the way they stormed the house in the dead of night make it clear who they are.” The country has been ruled by the military for several decades of its 77-year history and criticism of the security establishment has long been seen as a red line.

More than a dozen people stormed the house of Muhammad Waheed Murad, a multimedia journalist at Saudi-owned Urdu News , taking him away, his mother-in-law said in a video statement. Murad has previously criticised the role of

Murad’s lawyer Imaan Mazari filed a petition at Islamabad’s high court alleging unidentified officials “presumably from intelligence agencies” arrived in double-cabin trucks.