31/03/2026

TUESDAY | MAR 31, 2026

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Myanmar military chief steps down, eyes presidency

74 held for falsifying data reports

HANOI: Authorities in Vietnam have arrested more than 70 people, including government officials, accused of falsifying data from air and wastewater monitors at power plants and other major emitters. People’s Police newspaper said police had identified “nearly 160 environmental monitoring stations that had been tampered with, altered and had their data falsified” – accounting for more than half of the stations nationwide. Police arrested 74 people, including officials at state environmental agencies and others at businesses that discharge wastewater and install monitoring equipment, on charges related to monitoring violations. “Even though the monitoring equipment is sealed and has its own surveillance camera system, it was still being remotely adjusted via software,” the newspaper said. “The perpetrators interfered to reduce the output indicators thereby ensuring that the data sent to the management agency always remained within permissible levels.” Authorities said data sent to local environment departments from large-scale emitters of air pollution and wastewater, including the Quang Ninh Thermal Power Plant, Hai Phong Thermal Power Plant and Thai Binh 2 Thermal Power Plant, as well as aluminium and steel companies, were “being manipulated and altered in a sophisticated manner”. – AFP JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Attorney General Office (AGO) said yesterday that it has raided companies linked to the coal tycoon Samin Tan after he was identified over the weekend as a suspect in alleged illegal mining activities. Samin Tan is a once-influential deal-maker known for his US$1 billion (RM4 billion) investment in Bumi Plc, which helped rescue Indonesia’s powerful Bakrie family from a looming default. The AGO said the contract of work for Tan’s coal company, PT Asmin Koalindo Tuhup (AKT), was terminated in 2017, but the company allegedly continued mining operations up to last year. The case is the latest in Jakarta’s crackdown against illegal mining after President Prabowo Subianto vowed to eradicate bad practices in the exploitation of natural resources.

Prosecutors have raided and seized a number of assets linked to AKT and Samin Tan, and have questioned more than 20 witnesses, AGO spokeperson Anang Supriatna told reporters yesterday. “The raids and seizures are aimed at searching assets suspected of being related to, or are the proceeds of, crime,” he said. A government taskforce had previously seized nearly 1,700ha of the AKT mine in Central Kalimantan. The AGO is calculating the losses to the state caused by the alleged crime, Anang said, and a government taskforce has imposed a U$247.20 million administration fine on the company. Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission named Tan as a suspect in a bribery case in 2019 but he was legally exonerated. – Reuters YANGON: State Administration Council chairman Min Aung Hlaing stepped down as military chief yesterday to stand as president in a parliamentary vote. The 69-year-old general, who had commanded Myanmar’s armed forces since 2011, was one of two people named as vice-presidential candidates by lawmakers from the country’s newly convened lower house of parliament. The country’s upper house will also nominate a vice-presidential candidate, with both houses to select a president from the three in a later vote. A date for that vote has not been announced. “Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is proposed as a vice-presidential candidate,” Kyaw Kyaw Htay, a lawmaker from a military-aligned party, said on the floor of the lower house of parliament, according to a live broadcast of proceedings on state media. The move follows an election held in December and January, won by the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. At a separate ceremony in the capital Naypyidaw, Min Aung Hlaing handed over the position of o Ex-intelligence chief appointed successor

commander-in-chief of the armed forces to Ye Win Oo, a veteran officer. “I will continue to serve the interests of the people, the military, and the national interests of the country,” he said in a speech broadcast by media. Ye Win Oo was appointed Myanmar’s intelligence chief in 2020, and was promoted to commander-in-chief of the army earlier this month. “The fact that he received two major promotions within two months clearly demonstrates that he is one of Min Aung Hlaing’s most trusted loyalists,” said Aung Kyaw Soe, an independent analyst. A graduate of the Officer Training School, rather than the elite Defence Services Academy that has long been a crucible for the officer corps, Ye Win Oo previously led an infantry division and the Southwestern Command in the Ayeyarwady delta in the country’s south. “Since the coup, he has retained the rank of general and held one of the most sensitive portfolios at the apex of the military administration,” the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, a think tank based in Thailand, wrote in a March analysis. “Even so, General Ye Win Oo appears to lack the breadth of leadership experience that spans both battlefield command and institutional administration.” Born to a family from Myanmar’s

Min Aung Hlaing (left) symbolically handing over duties to his military successor Ye Win Oo during a ceremony in Naypyidaw yesterday. – MYANMAR MILITARY INFORMATION TEAM HANDOUT/AFPPIC

political rivals. He long had his eyes on becoming the country’s president, even though Myanmar’s raging civil war has dented the military’s prestige and hold over the country, Reuters has reported. “This has been Min Aung Hlaing’s goal all along,” said independent analyst Htin Kyaw Aye. “It’s just a shift from ruling as a military leader to ruling as president.” – Reuters

south, Min Aung Hlaing studied law before entering the military and rising steadily through the ranks, culminating in his promotion to military chief on this day 15 years ago. A rigid military leader and considered a ruthless operator, Min Aung Hlaing has relied on a finely tuned ability to manage the country’s elites, using tactics that include handing important positions to loyalists and punishing

Indonesian coal tycoon Samin Tan’s offices raided

KEEP WORKERS SAFE ... A Filipino protester rallies in front of the Department of Migrant Workers headquarters in Mandaluyong City, Philippines, yesterday calling for the protection of migrant workers in the Middle East. – REUTERSPIC

Over 300 Vietnamese accused of internet fraud HANOI: More than 300 Vietnamese accused of internet fraud have been arrested in Vietnam after being repatriated from Cambodia this month where authorities dismantled a transnational cyberscam ring. carry out sophisticated online scams, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

border with Thailand, and used social media and messaging apps to “defraud internet users, especially the elderly, frequent social media users, online traders and those with limited technological knowledge” in Vietnam. Police did not say how much money the group had obtained from victims. – AFP

Cambodia”, Dong Nai police said. Cambodia’s Immigration Department said this month that 776 Vietnamese nationals “involved in online fraud cases”in the country were deported to Vietnam on March 17. Vietnamese police said the accused had worked at a casino in the Cambodian city of Poipet, on the

internet fraud charges were made on Friday, said police in Vietnam’s Dong Nai province, which borders Cambodia. They were among nearly 400 Vietnamese handed over by Cambodian authorities on March 17 who “were part of a transnational online fraud ring dismantled in

Cambodia hosts dozens of scam centres with tens of thousands of people perpetrating online scams, some willingly and others trafficked, rights monitors say. The arrests of 343 people on

Across Southeast Asia, crime syndicates have used casinos, hotels and fortified compounds as bases to