15/08/2025

FRIDAY | AUG 15, 2025

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Thai-Cambodia reconciliation moves win China support

Rakhine facing food shortage PHNOM PENH: Half of the population of Rakhine State in Myanmar is facing severe food shortages due to civil conflict. The World Food Programme (WFP) has made an urgent call to the global community for increased humanitarian assistance. WFP said a combination of conflict, blockades and funding cuts is driving a dramatic rise in hunger and malnutrition. “People are trapped in a vicious cycle, cut off by conflict, stripped of livelihoods and left with no humanitarian safety net. “We are hearing heartbreaking stories of children crying from hunger and mothers skipping meals. “Families are doing everything they can but they cannot survive this alone,” said WFP representative and country director Michael Dunford. The western state, with a population of about three million, has been mired in the bloody conflict for years. A military coup in February 2021 exacerbated the situation. Rakhine, bordering Bangladesh, has also been caught in sectarian violence, which has caused the displacement of its Rohingya minority. According to WFP, the number of families unable to afford basic needs such as food has reached 57% in Rakhine, up from 33% last December. Families have resorted to desperate measures to survive, such as taking on mounting debts and begging. The conflict has also given rise to domestic violence, school dropouts, social tensions and human trafficking. The agency requires US$30 million (RM126 million) to assist 270,000 people in Rakhine over the next six months. – Bernama INDIA WANTS TO HOST C’WEALTH GAMES NEW DELHI: India says it will bid for the 2030 Commonwealth Games. “Our preparations will go ahead,” Indian Olympic Association president P.T. Usha said on Wednesday. New Delhi, which hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games, an event marked by construction delays, substandard infrastructure and accusations of corruption, is being considered as host city. Bhubaneswar in Odisha is another option. But media are tipping Ahmedabad, the key city in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. The city is home to a 130,000-seat arena, the world’s biggest cricket stadium, which was the venue of the 2023 Cricket World Cup final. – AFP PAKISTAN TO SET UP ROCKET FORCE ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will create a new force in the military to supervise missile combat capabilities in a conventional conflict. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the creation of the Army Rocket Force on Wednesday. “It will be equipped with modern technology,” Sharif said in a statement. He did not provide more details. A senior security official said the force will have its own command in the military dedicated to handling and deployment of missiles in any event of a conventional war. “It is obvious that it is meant for India,” he said. – Reuters

online gambling and wire fraud. He also expressed hope that Cambodia would continue strong measures for joint efforts in the region against cross-border criminal activities. For years, criminal networks have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to scam compounds across Southeast Asia, including many along the Thai-Myanmar border, where victims are forced to work in illegal online schemes, according to the United Nations. China this year has stepped up efforts with the region to stymie the scam operations after cases involving Chinese victims blew up on domestic social media. – Reuters

Wang spoke about China’s readiness to accelerate the China Thailand railway construction, encourage more investments from Chinese enterprises in Thailand, and to ensure the stability of regional production and supply chain. It is hoped that Thailand will provide more policy support and facilitation for Chinese enterprises, he said to Thailand’s Maris Sangiampongsa. In his meeting with Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, Wang expressed support for Cambodia maintaining political stability. Wang said China is appreciative of the country’s crackdown on

friendship, according to two statements from his ministry. He met his Thai and Cambodian counterparts separately on the sidelines of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, meeting reports showed. Thailand and Cambodia have wrangled for decades over border territory and have been on a conflict footing since the killing of a Cambodian soldier in a skirmish in late May. Clashes had turned deadly in the worst fighting in more than a decade before a ceasefire was struck in late July.

BEIJING: China expressed support for Thailand and Cambodia in resolving their border dispute and offered to provide assistance based on the wishes of both nations, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said yesterday. Wang said China supports the Southeast Asian countries in strengthening dialogue, and hopes they rebuild mutual trust and restore o Foreign minister urges parties to strengthen dialogue

BR I E F S

CALL FOR REDRESS ... Concerned residents of Central Java protest in Pati on Wednesday over issues including the regent’s resignation and local government transparency, following a now-revoked plan to raise local land and building taxes by 250%. – AFPPIC

Tropical storm disrupts travel, classes in south China HONG KONG: Tropical storm Podul yesterday dumped torrential rain on southern China, still reeling from record downpours last week, and disrupted hospitals, schools and law courts in Hong Kong after tearing through Taiwan and leaving 143 people injured. The hearing of Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy Quanzhou – a key textile, footwear and apparel export hub – were cancelled, with analysts warning extreme weather events increasingly pose a threat to growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Podul made landfall on the coast of China’s southeastern province of Fujian just after midnight, having weakened from a typhoon to a tropical storm after lashing Taiwan on Wednesday, where winds of up to 191kph left one person missing and scores injured. “China’s southern coast is set for economic disruptions of all kinds. Most institutions in the region are fairly well prepared, but there also seems to be a subtle northward shift in where cyclones reach their peak intensity – these places need to keep a sharper eye out.” “There’s growing evidence that we’re seeing more intense and slower-moving tropical cyclones.

China has been battling with record rainfall in its north and south as well as prolonged heatwaves in its interior. The government yesterday announced 430 million yuan (RM252 million) in fresh funding for disaster relief, taking the total allocated since April to at least 5.8 billion yuan. “It’s been raining constantly, and raining really heavily,” said Cara Liang, a 25-year-old visitor to Hong Kong from China’s neighbouring Guangdong province. “Many places in mainland China have experienced flooding, which hasn’t been good for anyone. My trip to Hong Kong this time has been disrupted,” she told Reuters in the Asian financial centre’s business district.

But its residual vortex stands to wreak havoc in southern China, still reeling from the heaviest rains in generations last week, as it moves northwest at a speed of 30-35kph. Hong Kong saw its heaviest August rainfall since 1884 last week while in Guangdong, 75,000 people were evacuated as 622.6mm of rain fell on the provincial capital Guangzhou between Aug 2 and 6 – nearly three times the city’s August average – leaving at least seven dead. “Authorities need to be extra ready,” said Chim Lee, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

advocate Jimmy Lai was cancelled after authorities put in place their highest-level “black” rainstorm warning, as supporters queued under umbrellas outside the court. Outpatient clinics also shut until 2pm and schools closed for the day. Meanwhile, airports across the region reported cancellation rates for the morning of about 20%, according to data from Flightmaster, as Podul pelted parts of the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi with more than 70mm of rain an hour. Over a third of flights to

Over one million cubic metres of water, the equivalent of 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools, was discharged from a reservoir in eastern Guangdong on Wednesday to free up space in anticipation of further heavy rain, state media reported. Authorities in Guangdong’s Meizhou closed all the highways yesterday due to the downpour, and the high-speed railway linking Shenzhen and Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province, some 1,200km away, was suspended. – Reuters