Martial law was declared in several areas of military-run Myanmar on Thursday, a day after authorities extended a state of emergency throughout the country wracked by violence that some U.N. experts have described as a civil war.
It came amid a cold snap which blighted much of Asia, sending the mercury plummeting in China, Japan and the Koreas.
On Sunday, just two days after the formation of the apartment 'snow cave', a town in the northernmost tip of Heilongjiang recorded a temperature of -53C - the lowest since records began.
China's national meteorological agency last week urged citizens to bundle up warm as the freezing conditions threatened vulnerable residents throughout the central, northern and eastern parts of the country.
Washington and Manila are close to inking an agreement that would see four new American installations opened in the Philippines. The new sites are part of an American military buildup in the Indo-Pacific to prepare for war with China.
According to The Washington Post, negotiations are ongoing but a deal between Manila and Washington is nearing completion. Once completed, American forces are expected to have new sites at four Philippines bases.
Myanmar's junta on Tuesday said the country had "not returned to normalcy" almost two years after its coup, casting doubt over plans for elections and ending a state of emergency.
The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since the military toppled democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government, alleging massive fraud during elections her party won in 2020.
A junta-imposed state of emergency is due to expire at the end of January, after which the constitution states that authorities must set in motion plans to hold fresh elections.
She maybe the highest ranking American official but most Americans do not even know her name. However, she is visiting Sri Lanka twice in one year & that should mean something. Why is she visiting Sri Lanka is however more important. She first visited Sri Lanka days before riots started resulted in the resignation of the former President. Naturally, all eyes are fixed on what is likely to emerge after her forthcoming visit. Over the years, there is no doubt the US has created local “agents” covering all spectrums of society.
During 2022 the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka was the scene of large-scale protests prompted by an unprecedented economic crisis.
For the first time in its post-colonial history, the country was forced to default on $51 billion in foreign debt obligations.
The harshest winter since 2008 is contributing to shortages of staple vegetables across Central Asia and sending prices north in a region still suffering from COVID-induced food inflation.
In Uzbekistan, record frosts have highlighted the shortcomings of the national energy system as even residents of the capital spent days on end without power. But the cold has also hammered the agriculture sector in the region’s most populous country.
On the afternoon of January 10, Van Bawi Mang, a member of an armed resistance group fighting against the Myanmar military, was resting in his barracks at a camp on the country’s northwestern border with India when a loud explosion jolted him back to the reality of war.
He scrambled into a nearby ditch as jet fighters flew overhead, glass shattering with the reverberation of the falling bombs.
Fighting has flared in recent days between Myanmar junta forces and rebels opposed to their rule, officials and locals said Tuesday, with reports that large numbers of civilians have fled the violence.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since Aung San Suu Kyi‘s civilian government was toppled in an army coup almost two years ago.
Long-established ethnic rebel groups, as well as dozens of “People’s Defence Forces” (PDF), have emerged in opposition and clash frequently with the military.
Two years after Azerbaijan and Armenia ended a war that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced around 90,000 civilians, tensions between the countries are again high in a dispute over a six-kilometer (nearly four-mile) road known as the Lachin Corridor.
The winding road, which is the only land connection between Armenia and the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan, has been blocked by protesters claiming to be environmental activists since mid-December, threatening food supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 people.
