11/08/2025

MONDAY | AUG 11, 2025

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Cambodia denies planting landmines near border

Chinese diplomat taken in for questioning BEIJING: Liu Jianchao, a senior Chinese diplomat widely seen as a potential future foreign minister, has been taken away by authorities for questioning, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Liu was taken away after returning to Beijing in late July from an overseas work trip, said the report, citing people familiar with the matter. China’s State Council Information Office, which handles media queries for the government, and the Communist Party International Liaison Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Liu, 61, has led the Communist Party’s body in charge of managing ties with foreign political parties. Since taking the role in 2022, he has travelled to more than 20 nations and met officials from more than 160 countries. Liu’s busy schedule, especially his meetings with former US secretary of state Antony Blinken, stoked expectations that the former diplomat was being groomed to be the next foreign minister. His detention marks the highest-level investigation involving a diplomat since China ousted its former foreign minister and President Xi Jinping’s protege, Qin Gang, in 2023 following rumours of an extramarital affair. Born in the northeastern province of Jilin, Liu majored in English at Beijing Foreign Studies University and studied international relations at Oxford before taking up his first post as a translator with the Foreign Ministry. He has served in China’s mission to Britain and later as ambassador to Indonesia and the Philippines. During his tenure as ministry spokesman, he was known for humourous off-the-cuff comments while making a no-nonsense defence of China’s interests. – Reuters KAGOSHIMA: A British F-35 stealth fighter jet made an emergency landing yesterday at Kagoshima Airport in southwestern Japan due to a malfunction. Some commercial flights at the airport were delayed as the runway was closed for 20 minutes following the incident at 11.30am, officials said. No injuries were reported. British forces have been conducting a joint drill with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force and US forces for the past week, having dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to the western Pacific. – Bernama 26 HELD OVER ILLEGAL ONLINE LOAN SCHEME BANGKOK: Thai police said they arrested 26 Chinese nationals on Saturday on suspicion they were running an illegal online loan operation. Officers raided a “luxury pool villa” in the resort town of Pattaya, about 100km south of Bangkok, and detained one woman and 25 men from China. Police said some suspects had overstayed tourist and student visas. Officers seized 53 mobile phones, Chinese language documents and 80,000 baht (RM10,957) in cash believed to have been used in the operation. Authorities charged the group with operating an unauthorised credit business and working illegally in the kingdom. – AFP STEALTH FIGHTER MAKES EMERGENCY LANDING

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weeks that Thai soldiers have been injured by mines while patrolling along the border. Two previous incidents led to the downgrading of diplomatic relations and triggered the clashes. The July 24 to 28 clashes, the worst fighting between the countries in more than a decade, involved exchanges of artillery fire and fighter jet sorties that killed at least 43 and left over 300,000 people displaced on both sides. The fragile ceasefire has been holding since Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Thursday to let Asean observers inspect disputed border areas to ensure hostilities do not resume. Bangkok accused Cambodia of planting landmines on the Thai side of the disputed border that injured soldiers on July 16 and July 23. Phnom Penh denied it had placed any new mines, saying the soldiers had veered off agreed routes and triggered old landmines left from its decades of war. – Reuters

Three Thai soldiers were injured by a landmine near the Cambodian border on Saturday, the Thai army said, days after both countries agreed to a detailed ceasefire halting last month’s deadly five-day conflict. One soldier lost a foot and two were injured after one of them stepped on a landmine while patrolling an area between Thailand’s Sisaket and Cambodia’s Preah Vihear provinces, the army said in a statement. The soldiers were being treated at a hospital, it said. Thailand said the incident occurred in an area of its territory recently cleared of landmines. Bangkok and Phnom Penh have quarrelled for decades over undemarcated parts of their 817km land border, which was first mapped by France in 1907 when Cambodia was its colony. Saturday’s incident is the third time in a few

o Agency says it has cleared more than one million mines BANGKOK: rejected Thailand’s accusation that it had freshly planted landmines. Its Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority said in a statement on Saturday that the country is a “proud state party” to the Ottawa Convention against landmines and has cleared more than one million mines left from decades of war. The Thai Foreign Ministry said Bangkok would lodge a complaint against Cambodia for violating a treaty, to which both are signatories, that bans the use of landmines and for infringing Thai sovereignty. Cambodia has

PROUD MOMENT ... Singapore leaders and invited dignitaries reviewing the military parade during the city-state’s 60th National Day celebrations on Saturday. – REUTERSPIC

Asean plastic leakage to rise 70% by 2050 TOKYO: Plastic waste leakage to the environment in Southeast Asian countries plus China, Japan and South Korea could increase by nearly 70% by 2050 from 2022 levels without effective measures to reduce the pollution. the Regional Plastics Outlook report said. Plastic waste is a major environmental issue, polluting rivers and oceans and posing health risks to wildlife and humans as microplastics enter the body.

urbanisation, plastic use in the 13 countries surged almost ninefold from 17 million tonnes in 1990 to 152 million tonnes in 2022, with more than half used for short-lived applications such as packaging, the OECD said. As over half of the plastic used in the region has a lifespan of less than five years, much of it quickly becomes waste. Regional plastic waste rose from 10 million tonnes in 1990 to 113 million tonnes in 2022. Ambitious actions, including bans on single use plastics and taxes, could cut plastic use in the region by 28%, raise the recycling rate to 54%, and reduce mismanaged waste by 97%, it added. – Bernama

The OECD projects that annual leakage into the environment in the region could reach 14.1 million tonnes in 2050, of which 5.1 million tonnes could reach rivers, coastal areas and oceans. The countries in the region differ widely in waste management capabilities and measures to curb plastics demand remain underused in most of them, it said. Due partly to rapid population growth and

Describing the region as a “hotspot for plastic pollution”, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in its report that mismanaged plastic waste remains a major concern, with 8.4 million tonnes leaking to the environment in 2022. “Informal and unsafe practices, such as open burning and dumping, persist in most Asean countries and China, especially in rural areas,”