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Thailand and Cambodia agreed to an “immediate” ceasefire Saturday, the two countries said in a joint statement, pledging to end border clashes that killed dozens of people.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the announcement “as a positive step towards alleviating the suffering of civilians… and creating an environment conducive to achieving lasting peace”, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.At least 47 people were killed and more than a million displaced in three weeks of fighting with artillery, tanks, drones and jets, according to official tallies.The conflict spread to nearly every border province on both sides, shattering an earlier truce for which US President Donald Trump took credit.Cambodia and Thailand agreed to the ceasefire that took effect at 12pm (0500 GMT), said the declaration signed by the Southeast Asian neighbours’ defence ministers at a border checkpoint on the Thai side.The truce applies to “all types of weapons, including attacks on civilians, civilian objects and infrastructures, and military objectives of either side, in all cases and all areas”.Both sides agreed to freeze all troop movements and allow civilians living in border areas to return home as soon as possible, the statement said.They also agreed to co-operate on demining efforts and combatting cybercrime, while Thailand was to return 18 captured Cambodian soldiers within 72 hours.Thai Defence Minister Nattaphon Narkphanit said the initial three-day window would be an “observation period to confirm that the ceasefire is real”.He called the truce “a door to a peaceful resolution” in a speech earlier.The ceasefire was holding, Thai defence ministry spokesperson Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri told Reuters about two hours after it went into effect.”So far there’s been no report of gunfire,” he said.Cambodia’s ministry of national defence did not report any clashes after what it said had been a Thai airstrike early on Saturday before the ceasefire announcement.Displaced Cambodian Oeum Raksmey told AFP that she was “very happy that people can return home” if the fighting stops.”But I dare not return home yet. I am still scared,” said the 22-year-old, who has sheltered with her family in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province.On the other side of the border, 55-year-old Thai village head Khampong Lueklarp was similarly cautious.”I personally think the ceasefire won’t really happen,” said the head of Ban Ta Sawang Samakkee village in Sisaket province, adding that he hoped for “a real peace”.The ceasefire followed three days of border talks convened following a crisis meeting of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).EU foreign affairs spokesman Anouar El Anouni, in a post on X, thanked “Asean for playing a positive part” and called on Cambodia and Thailand to implement the agreement “in good faith”.The European bloc was ready to provide any needed support, he added.The United States and China also pushed for an end to the fighting.Beijing’s foreign ministry said the ceasefire “demonstrates that dialogue and consultations are a realistic and effective way of resolving complex disputes”, offering support moving forward.China’s top diplomat Wang Yi will host the Cambodian and Thai foreign ministers for talks in Yunnan province on January 28-29, the countries said.The conflict stems from a territorial dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of the 800km (500-mile) Thai-Cambodian border, where both sides claim ancient temples.Five days of fighting in July killed dozens of people before a truce was brokered by the United States, China and Asean chair Malaysia.Trump witnessed the signing of an expanded agreement between Thailand and Cambodia in October, but it was broken within months, with each side blaming the other for instigating the fresh fighting.At least 25 Thai soldiers and one Thai civilian were killed in the latest round of clashes, officials said.Cambodia, outgunned and outspent by Bangkok’s military, said 21 civilians were killed.Phnom Penh has reported no military deaths, even though an official Facebook post showed first lady Pich Chanmony, the wife of Cambodia’s leader Hun Manet, at a funeral for troops killed in the fighting.The violence was still raging while this week’s border talks were underway.On Friday, Cambodia accused Thailand of intensifying its bombardment of disputed border areas, and Thai media reported Cambodian attacks overnight.While both sides agreed to halt the fighting, they will still need to resolve the demarcation of their border following the ceasefire.The contested temples are claimed by both nations because of a vague demarcation made by Cambodia’s French colonial administrators in 1907.”War and clashes don’t make the two countries or the two people happy,” Thailand’s Air Chief Marshal Prapas Sornjaidee told reporters. “I want to stress that the Thai people and the Cambodian people are not in conflict with each other.”UN human rights chief Volker Turk said he hoped the ceasefire “will pave the way for confidence building & peace”. 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Local people rescue an elderly woman during a fire at the Werdha Damai retirement home in Manado, North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, Monday. Sixteen people died in the tragedy which occurred late Sunday. The home's caretaker said its residents were the elderly, and about 30 people had been in the complex. Source link
A pair of Chinese JH-7A fighter-bomber aircraft fly over the Taiwan Strait as seen from Pingtan island, the closest point to Taiwan, in eastern China’s Fujian…
An international observer gets photographed with white elephants in an enclosure during her visit in Naypyidaw, a day before Myanmar’s general election. – AFP Myanmar heads to the polls today as it battles a civil war that has ravaged parts of the country as well as one of Asia’s worst humanitarian crises.Already one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries, Myanmar has been hammered by a conflict triggered by a 2021 coup in which the military ousted an elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis is one of the most severe in Asia, driven by the intensifying civil war and repeated natural disasters, including a massive earthquake in March.The ruling junta has previously suppressed information about a severe food crisis gripping the country by pressuring researchers not to collect data about hunger and aid workers not to publish it, Reuters has reported, besides cracking down on journalists since the coup.Myanmar is one of the world’s most under-funded aid operations, with only 12% of required funds received, the United Nations says.US cuts to humanitarian aid are having a crushing impact on people, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has said.The UN estimates that 20mn of Myanmar’s 51mn people need aid as soaring inflation and a plunging currency push about half the population below the poverty line.More than 3.6mn people have been displaced from their homes, with over 6,800 civilians killed in the conflict triggered by the coup, according to UN estimates.With mounting violence forcing increasing numbers of people to flee, more than 12mn in Myanmar will face acute hunger next year, including 1mn who will need lifesaving support, according to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).More than 16mn people across Myanmar are acutely food insecure, meaning that their lack of food threatens lives and livelihoods, the WFP estimates.They are the fifth-largest group needing aid anywhere in the world, making Myanmar “a hunger hotspot of very high concern”, the agency said.More than 540,000 children across the country are expected to suffer this year from acute malnutrition – life-threatening wasting that can have severe and lifelong effects – a 26% increase from last year, the WFP said.One in three children under the age of five is already suffering from stunted growth, according to the WFP.Myanmar’s economy – once deemed as one of the region’s most promising – has struggled in recent years, reeling from the civil war, natural disasters and mismanagement.However, despite the challenges, Myanmar’s economy is showing some signs of improvement and its GDP growth is estimated to rebound to 3% in the next fiscal year, the World Bank said this month.The projected growth is driven by post-earthquake reconstruction and continued targeted assistance for the hardest-hit areas, although inflation is expected to remain above 20%.With electricity supply deteriorating, exposing millions of people to chronic blackouts, households and businesses are increasingly embracing solar energy for reliable power.Russia, which has been building ties with the junta, signed an investment agreement with Myanmar in June that it said could open up new opportunities for Russian energy companies in the south Asian country. Related…
Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro underwent a medical procedure on Saturday to treat recurrent hiccups he has been dealing with for months, according to his medical team.The 70-year-old ex-president, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for an attempted coup, had been released from prison on Wednesday to undergo surgery for a groin hernia at the DF Star Hospital in Brasilia.That surgery was performed on Thursday without incident, and Bolsonaro remained hospitalised for several days for evaluation.During that time, Bolsonaro's medical team determined it was necessary to perform an anesthetic block of the phrenic nerve – which controls the diaphragm – to treat his recurring hiccups. Bolsonaro's doctor, Claudio Birolini, told reporters on Thursday that the procedure involved locating the nerve using an ultrasound machine and then injecting it with a local analgesic.The procedure on Saturday ‘went well’, according to another of the doctors, Mateus Saldanha.Birolini said the process took about an hour, adding that ‘it's not surgery… it does not involve any incisions”.The right side of the nerve was treated on Saturday, and a procedure to treat the left side of the nerve is set Monday.’My love just went to the surgical centre to have his phrenic nerve blocked,’ former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro wrote in an Instagram post on Saturday. ‘It's been nine months of struggle and anguish with daily hiccups.’ The far-right former president, who was in power from 2019-2022, has for years been dealing with the aftermath of an abdominal stab wound he suffered during a 2018 campaign rally, requiring several major surgeries.In September, Brazil's Supreme Court found Bolsonaro guilty of conspiring to stay in power after losing the 2022 election to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and handed him a 27-year prison sentence.The coup failed due to a lack of support from top military brass.The far-right ex-president has claimed his innocence, claiming that he was being persecuted by the Supreme Court.Bolsonaro was under house arrest from August until his imprisonment on November 22.Once discharged from the hospital, Bolsonaro will return to serving his sentence at a federal police jail in the capital.Brazil's Supreme Court on Saturday also ordered house arrest for 10 officials from Bolsonaro's administration who were involved in planning the coup plot, sought legal justification for it, or spread disinformation about it on social media.The 10 officials had been convicted but were out of prison due to pending appeals.One of the officials, Silvinei Vasques, was detained in Paraguay on Friday after he allegedly tried to board a flight with false papers. Source link
Sixteen people were killed in a fire that broke out at a nursing home in Manado, North Sulawesi province, in Indonesia, local authorities said on Monday.Head of public relations of the North Sulawesi Regional Police Alamsyah P. Hasibuan said that the police began procedures to identify the victims. He explained that the fire broke out in the Panti Werdha Damai nursing home in Manado and noted that the fire brigades were able to control the fire.He added that police forces evacuated the survivors to another hospital and opened an investigation into the incident to determine its circumstances and the initial cause of its outbreak. Related Story Source link
Under the shadow of civil war and questions over the poll’s credibility, the initial round of Myanmar’s phased general election closed Sunday, with signs of low voter turnout for the first polls since a military coup in 2021.The junta, having crushed pro-democracy protests after the coup and sparked a nationwide rebellion, said the vote would bring political stability to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, despite international condemnation of the exercise.The United Nations, some Western countries and human rights groups have said the vote is not free, fair or credible, given that anti-junta political parties are out of the running and it is illegal to criticise the polls. Members of Myanmar’s Union Election commission (UEC) count ballots after the closing of polls at a polling station in the first phase of Myanmar’s general…
The storm Johannes hits Vasterbotten and the northern mountain areas hard with storm winds and heavy snowfall, at Hemavan, Sweden December 27, 2025. REUTERS The death toll in Sweden rose to three after a storm battered Scandinavia on Saturday and overnight, with thousands still without power Sunday.The storm, dubbed Johannes in Sweden, swept over large parts of the northern half of the country and western parts of Finland.A man in his 60s who had been working in the forest was hit by a falling tree on Saturday in Hofors in Sweden, police said Sunday.He later died of his injuries in the hospital.The fatality adds to the two reported on Saturday: a man in his 50s died at the hospital after also being hit by a falling tree near the Kungsberget ski resort in central Sweden, Mats Lann of Gavleborg police told AFP.Further north, regional utility Hemab said that one of its employees had died in an accident “in the field”.Broadcaster SVT reported that the worker had also been caught under a falling tree.Strong gusts toppled trees, disrupted traffic and caused large power outages in Sweden and Finland.In Finland, more than 85,000 homes were still without power around 12am local time (10 GMT) Sunday after a peak of over 180,000.Energy companies warned the reparation work might take several days.Meanwhile, Swedish news agency TT reported that at least 40,000 Swedish homes were still left without electricity Sunday morning. Related…
When a US federal judge ruled in late November that Meta does not maintain an illegal monopoly in social media, it was a reminder that even the strongest evidence can look weak when enforcers act too late. Rejecting the US Federal Trade Commission’s narrow market definition, the court instead concluded that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, competes against a broad array of rivals such as TikTok and YouTube. While legal scholars can and will dissect the opinion, the biggest takeaway is that timing matters in dynamic markets, implying that antitrust authorities must develop a preventive approach, rather than relying solely on reactive measures. The case centred on Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, when both were unmistakably competitive threats. Facebook said so itselfBut the case collapsed under the weight of today’s market reality. Instead of considering the world as it existed when the mergers occurred, the court (incorrectly) cited the rise of TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts as evidence that Facebook lacked monopoly power. The flaws in the court’s reasoning reflect a deeper problem with litigating consummated mergers: it asks judges to travel back in time and forget what they now know. Questions like “Would Instagram have become this significant without Facebook’s investment?” or “What competition might have emerged if the acquisitions had not taken place?” are inherently counterfactual. It is very difficult to measure the impact of competition that never existed. This suggests that the acquisitions should have been challenged when they were first proposed – a difficult task, but not as hard as challenging consummated deals. Predicting the future is less formidable than reconstructing the present on the basis of an imaginary past. The flaws of late enforcement were also on display in the Google antitrust trial. Even as a US federal judge ruled in 2024 that Google had illegally monopolised general-search services, the remedy was softened by the perception that AI chatbots were already reshaping the market. Even the boldest proposed remedies centred less on restoring competition in search and more on ensuring that the next tech frontier remains open. Regulators should have prevented Facebook from acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp in the first place, but erred on the side of caution, fearing false positives and believing that the market would self-correct. But that decision has proved impossible to unwind, even though Facebook’s acquisition of direct competitors in a competitive market should have been a straightforward win for antitrust authorities – the very kind of textbook harm the law is designed to prevent. To their credit, the FTC and the department of justice under former US president Joe Biden had begun to develop and use their preventive toolkit. They challenged several mergers (including Nvidia-Arm, Illumina-GRAIL, and Microsoft-Activision Blizzard), examined practices in nascent industries such as AI partnerships, and launched early probes into emerging monopolies in the cloud computing and semiconductor markets. But the pendulum has swung back under Donald Trump’s second administration, which has pursued merger settlements, dialled back investigations into AI giants, and revived the myth that tech firms are the guardians of innovation and national security. It doesn’t have to be this way. US antitrust regulators now have stronger merger guidelines and a clearer understanding of how digital markets work. What they need is the political will to act early and decisively. The same applies to other governments. The most consequential tech mergers are reviewed simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions, and regulators in the European Union and the UK also have powerful preventive tools, including merger review and market studies. Even just initiating an investigation can create enough friction and uncertainty for parties to abandon a deal, as happened with Nvidia-Arm and Visa-Plaid. But the global scramble to attract AI investment has pushed competition enforcement into retreat. Amid increasing geopolitical turbulence, regulators are forgetting the hard-earned lessons of the platform era and pulling back precisely when they should be applying those lessons to block anti-competitive AI mergers and prevent the emergence of AI monopolies. The result is a classic collective-action problem, even though all it takes is one courageous competition authority to block a global deal and change the trajectory of an entire market. The Meta decision can seem like much ado about nothing: one case that was too difficult to win despite overwhelming evidence. But viewed in a broader context, it becomes clear that timing makes all the difference in antitrust enforcement. Regulators must learn to flex their preventive muscle to have any hope of taming Big Tech. – Project Syndicate Related Story Source link
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was in no hurry for peace and if it did not want to resolve their conflict peacefully, Moscow would accomplish all its goals by force.Putin’s remarks on Saturday, carried by state news agency Tass, followed a vast Russian drone and missile attack that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to say that Russia was demonstrating its wish to continue the war while Kyiv wanted peace.Zelensky was due to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida to seek a resolution to the war Putin launched nearly four years ago with a full-scale invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Putin’s remarks.Russian commanders told Putin during an inspection visit that Moscow’s forces had captured the towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Kremlin said on the Telegram messaging app.Ukraine’s military rejected Russia’s assertions about Huliaipole and Myrnohrad as false statements.The situation in both places remains “difficult” but “defensive operations” by Ukrainian troops are ongoing, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a statement on social media.The Southern Command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Telegram that “fierce fighting” continued in Huliaipole. “However, a substantial part of Huliaipole continues to be held by the Defence Forces of Ukraine.”Verifying battlefield claims is difficult as access on both sides is restricted, information is tightly controlled and front lines shift quickly, with media relying on satellite and geolocated footage that can be partial or delayed.Zelensky meanwhile said he would push a new peace plan for Ukraine when he sits down with Trump in Florida, bolstered by the backing of European leaders but with his capital Kyiv still reeling from a massive Russian bombardment.The US president has been non-committal on the revised 20-point proposal for ending the nearly four-year conflict, while Putin has offered no indication that Moscow would find it acceptable.Trump has made ending the Ukraine war a centrepiece of his second term as a self-proclaimed “president of peace”, and he has repeatedly blamed both Kyiv and Moscow for the failure to secure a ceasefire.The meeting, to be hosted by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence at 1pm (1800 GMT), will be their first in-person encounter since October, when the US president refused to grant Zelensky’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles.And the Ukrainian leader could face another hard sell this time around, with Trump insisting that he “doesn’t have anything until I approve it”.The talks are expected to last an hour, after which the two presidents are scheduled to hold a joint call with the leaders of key European allies.The revised peace plan, which emerged from weeks of intense US-Ukraine negotiations, would stop the war along its current front lines and could require Ukraine to pull troops back from the east, allowing the creation of demilitarized buffer zones.As such, it contains Kyiv’s most explicit acknowledgement yet of possible territorial concessions.It does not, however, envisage Ukraine withdrawing from the 20% of the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls – Russia’s main territorial demand.Before landing in Florida, Zelensky made a stopover in Canada during which he held a conference call with European allies, who pledged their full support for his peace efforts and vowed to maintain pressure on Moscow.The Ukrainian leader said he hoped the talks in Florida would be “very constructive”.He also told reporters that he would press Trump on the importance of providing security guarantees that would prevent any renewed Russian aggression if a ceasefire were secured.”We need strong security guarantees. We will discuss this and we will discuss the terms,” he said.Ukraine insists it needs more European and US funding and weapons – especially drones.Russia has accused Ukraine and its European backers of trying to “torpedo” a previous US-brokered plan to stop the fighting.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state news agency Tass that Moscow would continue its engagement with US negotiators but criticized European governments as the “main obstacle” to peace.”They are making no secret of their plans to prepare for war with Russia,” Lavrov said, adding that the ambitions of European politicians are “literally blinding them”. Related Story Source link