YANGON: Former United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has arrived in Myanmar, state media reported on Monday, as the bloody conflict engulfing the country spirals.
Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup have stalled, with the junta ignoring international criticism of its brutal crackdown on dissent and refusing to engage with its opponents.
Myanmar media gave no details of Ban’s visit, but he is a member of “The Elders” group of world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, which works to promote peace and defuse conflicts.
Ban and his team “arrived in Naypyidaw by air yesterday evening,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
He was met by the deputy ministers for defense and foreign affairs, the newspaper said, without providing details.
A bulletin on state-run TV showed Ban waving for the cameras as he arrived at the airport, accompanied by several officials.
AFP has contacted The Elders for comment on Ban’s trip.
Ban, who also served as South Korean foreign minister, traveled to Myanmar several times during his time as UN secretary general, with varying degrees of success negotiating with the generals.
In 2009 he visited to pressure then junta leader Than Shwe to release Aung San Suu Kyi, but the general brazenly snubbed his attempts to visit the pro-democracy figurehead.
In 2016, with Suu Kyi out of jail and serving as Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, he returned to solidify international support for her push to sign peace agreements with the country’s myriad ethnic rebel groups.
Suu Kyi was detained again at the start of the 2021 coup, which plunged the country into tumult and tanked the economy.
UN special envoy for Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer requested a meeting with Suu Kyi during her visit to the country in August last year.
The military rebuffed the request and Heyzer later vowed she would not visit the country again unless she was allowed to meet the Nobel laureate.
The junta wrapped up a series of closed-court trials of Suu Kyi in December, jailing her for a total of 33 years in a process rights groups have condemned as a sham.
Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon in Myanmar: state media
https://arab.news/bmete
Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon in Myanmar: state media
- Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup have stalled
- Myanmar media gave no details of former UN chief’s visit
Senior Labour official admits Gaza has cost party votes in local elections
- Pat McFadden says leadership’s stance on conflict has been ‘a factor in some places’
- Prof. John Curtice says Labour has performed ‘quite badly’ among Muslim voters
LONDON: A senior Labour official has suggested the party’s stance on Gaza might have affected its performance in local elections in the UK.
A series of votes took place this week nationwide to elect new mayors in multiple major cities, as well as council members and police and crime commissioners.
Labour was expected to perform strongly, but Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, told Sky News that Gaza had been “a factor in some places,” adding that with “so many innocent people being killed I’m not surprised people have strong feelings about that.”
Party sources suggested turnout in key areas was lower than anticipated, with many Muslim voters choosing not to vote, including in one key election in the West Midlands where lack of support saw Labour lose the local mayoralty to the Conservative incumbent Andy Street.
It comes weeks after former Labour MP George Galloway was elected to represent the formerly safe Labour constituency of Rochdale in Parliament, with Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza a key theme of the campaign.
Galloway has since said his Workers Party of Britain will seek to stand candidates in every constituency at the next UK general election.
An anonymous Labour source in the West Midlands told The Times: “We (would) have beaten him (Andy Street) as a general rule, but the Muslim vote has collapsed to the Galloway-backed independent.”
Another source quoted by the BBC caused controversy and was accused of racism by Conservative sources for saying: “It’s the Middle East, not West Midlands, that will have won Andy Street the mayoralty. Once again Hamas are the real villains.”
In a statement, Labour told ITV: “The Labour Party has strongly condemned this racist quote which has not come from anyone who is speaking on behalf of the party or whose values are welcome in the party.”
Labour lost its 13-year spell controlling the local council in Oldham, having seen its majority reduced in recent weeks ahead of the elections following defections by councilors opposed to Labour leader Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza.
However, Arooj Shah, Labour’s council chief in Oldham, disputed that Gaza was the main issue, telling The Independent: “I don’t think that’s a fair statement to make, given that the issue of Gaza has been over the last year, but what we’ve seen in Oldham is a lot longer than that. We have had 13 years of austerity and that’s been really, really difficult.”
Elsewhere, Green Party candidates also claimed former Labour seats in Newcastle and Bolton.
Nick Peel, Labour’s council leader for Bolton, told The Independent: “As a direct result of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine, many South Asian voters have not supported Labour or Conservative.”
Chris Hopkins, political research director for market research company Savanta, told The Independent that Labour could lose more council seats in areas with significant Muslim populations, such as Bradford and Burnley, over the Gaza issue as results continued to be announced.
Leading pollster Prof. John Curtice told the paper that “Labour has actually done quite badly” in areas of the country with large Muslim communities, and warned that the trend could harm the party ahead of the next general election.
Starmer told the BBC: “I’m concerned wherever we lose votes and we intend to win back any votes we have lost.
“But there’s no denying that across the country, whether it’s Hartlepool in the north or Rushmoor in the south, or Redditch, a bellwether seat, we are winning votes across the country. And that, I think, reflects a changed Labour Party with a positive case to take to the country.”
Russia’s FSB says it killed saboteur recruited by Ukraine
- The man was a Russian national recruited by Ukraine’s military intelligence to carry out the attack in the Leningrad region
- He had entered Russia from Lithuania in March after receiving training there
MOSCOW: Russia’s FSB state security service said on Friday its officers had killed a saboteur who had been recruited by Ukraine and was planning to attack a fuel terminal in northwestern Russia with explosives.
The FSB said in a statement the man was a Russian national recruited by Ukraine’s military intelligence to carry out the attack in the Leningrad region, and that he had been killed after shooting at security agents.
The FSB said he had entered Russia from Lithuania in March after receiving training there.
Vilmantas Vitkauskas, Head of the Lithuanian National Crisis Management Center, denied the allegation.
“Russia has been systematically conducting disinformation campaigns and provocations for a long time in order to raise tensions among societies and allies and to cover its aggressive actions,” he said.
“This disinformation spread by the FSB is a case in point. One of the objectives of such aggressive activities is to influence Lithuania’s support for Ukraine.”
There was no immediate comment by Ukraine, were Russian forces are waging war after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Little hope of Ukraine breakthrough during Xi France visit: observers
- “France and the European Union expect him to use his influence on Russia, but Xi Jinping has nothing to offer on Ukraine,” said a former European diplomat
- Xi is due to make a state visit to France on Monday and Tuesday
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will next week make a new push to try and dissuade China’s Xi Jinping from supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine but is unlikely to make a breakthrough on ending the conflict during the visit, observers say.
President Xi’s visit is set to be rich on symbolism — with a sumptuous dinner at the Elysee Palace and a trip to the Pyrenees mountains planned — but risks being short on diplomatic success for the French leader.
“France and the European Union expect him to use his influence on Russia, but Xi Jinping has nothing to offer on Ukraine,” said a former European diplomat, asking not to be named.
Xi is due to make a state visit to France on Monday and Tuesday, followed by visits to Serbia and Hungary, two European countries retaining warm ties with Russia.
While Xi and Macron will discuss international crises, trade, climate change and cultural exchanges, the key aim will be to “point out that for Europe, the first issue with China is its position on Ukraine,” said a source close to the French government.
On a visit to China in 2023, Macron had already called on Xi to “bring Russia to its senses” over Ukraine and urged him not to deliver weapons to Moscow.
Little has changed, however. Xi will host Putin for talks in China later this month.
Macron, 46, indicated he had not given up on the idea of trying to get Xi, 70, on his side.
“It’s not in China’s interest today to have a Russia that destabilizes the international order,” the French president said in an interview with The Economist published on Thursday. “We need to work with China to build peace.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has urged Beijing to play a greater role in ending the Ukraine war, will join Macron and Xi for talks on Monday.
Macron has said he will ask the Chinese president to help him achieve that aim when he visits Paris, which is preparing to host the Olympic Games this summer.
There is a historic tradition that peace should reign during the Olympics — although the opening of the Games in Beijing in August 2008 did not halt Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
“On Ukraine, China has done nothing,” said Marc Julienne, director of the Center for Asian Studies at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
In February 2023, China published a 12-point position paper on Ukraine, but it was rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies.
Beijing, which says it is a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict, has been criticized for refusing to condemn Moscow for its offensive.
The United States had accused China of helping Russia carry out its biggest militarization since Soviet times.
US officials say China has provided dual-use supplies that have let Russia regroup in the face of a long delay in US aid to Ukraine.
In April, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this included “machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade.”
China has rejected the US claims as “groundless accusations.”
Macron, too, is expected to raise “concerns” about “the activity of certain Wuhan companies that could be directly involved in or contribute significantly to the Russian war effort,” according to a member of his team.
Beijing is a major supporter of the Russian economy.
China-Russia trade in 2023 reached a record $240 billion, according to customs data, overshooting a goal of $200 billion set by the neighbors.
Experts say Beijing is unlikely to renounce support for Moscow, which it sees as a priority partner in its opposition to the United States.
“Xi Jinping’s priority is the Global South,” said Emmanuel Lincot, a China expert at the Catholic University of Paris.
“There is a congruence in the Sino-Russian bilateral relationship, particularly in the desire to counter the West. Which is not to say that there is no rivalry.”
Human rights group begins legal action over UK’s Rwanda migrant policy
- The group said the government’s Safety of Rwanda policy document was inconsistent with the new law
LONDON: Human rights group Asylum Aid said on Friday it had launched a legal challenge to the British government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda in the wake of a new law which seeks to pave the way for the scheme to be put into operation.
The group said the government’s Safety of Rwanda policy document, published on April 29, was inconsistent with the new law which was passed by parliament last month to override a ruling by the UK Supreme Court that the scheme was unlawful.
Britain sanctions Israeli groups, individuals for violence in West Bank
- The four individuals sanctioned were responsible for human rights abuses against Palestinian communities in the West Bank
LONDON: Britain on Friday imposed sanctions on two “extremist” groups and four individuals in Israel who it blamed for violence in the West Bank, its latest package of measures against Israeli settlers.
Britain’s Foreign Office named Hilltop Youth and Lehava as two groups which it said were known to have supported, incited and promoted violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
The four individuals sanctioned were responsible for human rights abuses against these communities, the statement added.
Among them are Noam Federman, who has trained settler groups in committing violence and Elisha Yered, who has justified killing Palestinians on religious grounds.
Violence in the West Bank was already on the rise before Israel’s assault on Gaza, which was triggered by an Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
It has escalated since, with stepped-up Israeli military raids, settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.
British foreign minister David Cameron said extremist settlers were undermining security and stability and threatening the prospects for peace.
“The Israeli authorities must clamp down on those responsible. The UK will not hesitate to take further action if needed, including through further sanctions,” he said.
Those sanctioned will be subject to financial and travel restrictions. Britain previously imposed sanctions on four Israeli nationals in February.
