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US oil giant Unocal must stand trial in California for alleged complicity in human rights abuses by Burma's military junta, including forced labour, rape and torture, a judge has ruled. "Prior to its involvement in the pipeline project, Unocal had specific knowledge that the use of forced labour was likely, and nevertheless chose to proceed," Los Angeles Superior Court judge Victoria Chaney said. In the decision, Judge Chaney rejected arguments by the California-based energy firm, which built a gas pipeline in Burma, that the case should be tried at least in part under Burma or Bermuda law. Unocal had made...

US and China should break the "old economy" - Clinton By John Liu Hangzhou September 10. INTERFAX-CHINA - Former US President Bill Clinton has said that China had no choice but to develop renewable sources of energy, saying that if new alternatives were not found to traditional modes of economic growth, international conflicts over scarce resources would become increasingly likely. Clinton, attending the China Internet Summit at the West Lake, organized by the e-commerce portal Alibaba in the coastal resort city of Hangzhou, noted that in an "interdependent" world, growing nations such as China and India had to find...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Chinese oil company's fight to buy Unocal ended last week in an angry retreat, but not without leaving clear signs that other political battles loom in Washington, D.C., over how much more of America the cash-rich Chinese can acquire

Chiquita Brands was ordered Monday by a Florida jury to pay $38.3 million to the families of eight people killed by a right-wing paramilitary group in Colombia, which the banana grower had funded for years during that country's violent civil war. Chiquita had previously acknowledged funding the paramilitary group, pleading guilty in 2007 after the U.S. Department of Justice charged the company with providing payments to what the agency labeled a "terrorist organization." The group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC, received payments from Chiquita from about 1997 through 2004, which the company had described as "security payments" during...

The Burmese people continue to suffer as the brutal civil war in Myanmar heads toward its sixth year. The conflict was recently brought home to America with China’s arrest of Min Zin, an American citizen who heads the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP)–Myanmar, located in Thailand. Beijing accused him of spying. China has increasingly close relations with the government in Naypyidaw, highlighted by the June visit to Beijing of Min Aung Hlaing, the commanding general who recently anointed himself Myanmar’s president. China helps Hlaing’s regime survive despite widespread popular opposition. For decades the borderlands of Myanmar have been aflame,...

According to preliminary information, the two boats left Myanmar's western state of Rakhine in late June carrying mostly Rohingya passengers, including some who had traveled from refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh, according to a statement from the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. One boat, believed to have been carrying around 250 people, lost contact shortly after departure. A second boat, reportedly carrying 280 people, is believed to have sunk off Myanmar's Ayeyarwady coast on July 8. The Rohingya, who have in recent years fled both Myanmar and Bangladesh's squalid refugee camps...

Miners in Myanmar have discovered a rare ruby of enormous size, considered to be the second-largest by weight ever found in the conflict-battered Southeast Asian nation, state media reported Friday. The ruby, measuring 11,000 carats (2.2 kilograms, or 4.8 pounds), was unearthed near the town of Mogok, in the upper Mandalay region, the heartland of the lucrative gem-mining industry that has recently experienced intense fighting in the country’s wide-ranging civil war. According to a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the newly found rough ruby was discovered in mid-April, just after the traditional New Year festival. While...

China has executed four leading members of Myanmar-based scam syndicates, a Chinese court said on Monday (Feb 2), the second such announcement in less than a week as Beijing ramps up a crackdown on cross-border telecom fraud. Fraud compounds where scammers lure internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Cambodia and the lawless borderlands of Myanmar. Initially, largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal billions of dollars from victims around the world.

China executed 11 people convicted of intentional homicide, fraud and other crimes linked to a cross-border scam operation, after the country’s top court approved their death sentences, authorities said Thursday. The announcement was published on the website for the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s highest state body responsible for criminal prosecution and oversight. The executions followed a ruling and execution order from the Supreme People’s Court, which upheld lower court judgments against members of the so-called Ming family criminal group.

Criminal associates of Chen Zhi who surrender before Feb 15 and "truthfully confess their crimes" could be eligible for "lighter or reduced sentences", China's Ministry of Public Security said.China called on Thursday (Jan 15) for criminal associates of accused scam boss Chen Zhi to surrender voluntarily in return for lighter sentences, after their alleged ringleader was extradited from Cambodia. Chen has been indicted by the United States on fraud and money-laundering charges for allegedly running a multibillion-dollar cyberscam network from Cambodia. Beijing has also called Chen "the ringleader of a major cross-border gambling and fraud criminal syndicate", and Cambodia deported...

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Oct. 15 that the agency is cracking down on espionage by foreign adversaries, with an increase in arrests as high as 50 percent. “We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran,” he said at a press conference. “In China alone, we’ve had over a 50 percent increase in espionage arrests alone, and prosecutions,” Patel said. “In Iran, we have had a 50 percent increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we had a 33 percent increase in espionage cases alone.” State Department employee Ashley Tellis, arrested...

China has executed 11 members of a notorious Myanmar mafia family that was infamous for duping victims in fake online romances. The Ming crime family was sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, with the same court also carrying out the executions on Thursday. Residents in the UK and the US have fallen victim to similar, sophisticated schemes, after being lured into romantic relationships that resulted in the loss of large amounts of cash. The clan members were executed for crimes including 'intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment',...

"We are in the position to form a new government," said a senior official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, after the vote's third and final phase took place on Sunday.Myanmar's dominant pro-military party has won junta-run elections, a party source told AFP on Monday (Jan 26), after a month-long vote that democracy watchdogs dismissed as a rebranding of army rule. While the military has said the election will return power to the people, popular democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi remains detained since the coup and her party has been dissolved, while critics say the ballot was stacked...

The US State Department announced plans on Monday to promote online youth groups as a new and powerful way to fight crime, political oppression and terrorism. Drawing inspiration from a movement against FARC rebels in Colombia, the State Department is joining forces with Facebook, Google, MTV, Howcast and others in New York City next week to get the "ball rolling." It said 17 groups from South Africa, Britain and the Middle East which have an online presence like the "Million Voices Against the FARC" will attend a conference at Columbia University Law School from December 3-5. Observers from seven organizations...

More than four years ago, the military ousted Myanmar’s freely elected government at gunpoint. The upcoming polls will be a total sham.On December 28, Myanmar’s military will hold the first phase of a long-promised election. But don’t be fooled: The voting is set to be a total sham. Military chief Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 coup, has urged his enemies to put down their weapons and take part in the election. He has also promised that the military administration will transfer power to whatever government is formed after the vote. But few observers are putting much stock...

"secret settlements with 25 men" Ghislaine Maxwell speaking... "A future DOJ could convict the current AG and others" Thomas Massie's warning... The International Court of Justice will hear a genocide case against the military government of Myanmar... The US Justice Department appealing dismissal of charges...James Comey...Letitia James... The United States drafting a ten-year 112-billion-dollar project to rebuild Gaza... In Brazil imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro...leave prison for hernia surgery... "The subversion of democracy begins" Reform UK leader Nigel Farage... Republican US Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming will not seek re-election... Turning Point USA political event...Erika Kirk endorsing Vice-President JD Vance...

The war that rages on in Burma today is fought on a multitude of fronts. In the mountainous regions of Burma, armed resistance groups are struggling to defend their communities against the bloody regime of the State Security and Peace Commission, SSPC (formerly called the State Administration Council), a military dictatorship with a track record of profiting from illicit activities. Within this convoluted conflict, a quickly expanding criminal empire has taken root. Cyber scam centers, run by established Chinese crime rings and manned by victims of human trafficking, are popping up all along the Burma-Thai border. According to a recent...

There were signs that heroin from Myanmar is reaching markets in Europe previously supplied by Afghanistan, with several seizures over the past year that involved passengers travelling from Southeast Asia to Europe. Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar surged to its highest level in a decade this year as the nation crippled by civil war remains one of the world's primary suppliers of illicit drugs, according to a new United Nations report. The growth solidifies Myanmar's position as the world’s main known source of illicit opium, particularly following a sharp decline in production in Afghanistan after the Taliban imposed a ban...

The White House has paused all immigration applications from 19 countries and canceled citizenship ceremonies across the US, citing national security and public safety concerns. The freeze could affect more than 1.5 million people who had asylum applications pending and more than 50,000 who received asylum grants under the Biden administration, The New York Times reports. President Donald Trump is also considering expanding the travel ban to more than 30 countries, according to the New York Post. The new policy memorandum, released Tuesday night, cites last week’s 'terror attack' in D.C. where Afghan man Rahmanullah Lakanwal was arrested for allegedly...

At least 24 people were killed and 47 wounded while protesting against Myanmar's military government after an army motorised paraglider dropped two bombs on the crowd, a spokesperson for the government-in-exile told BBC Burmese. The military attacked on Monday evening as around 100 people gathered in Chaung U township in central Myanmar for a national holiday. Thousands have died and millions have been displaced since a military coup in 2021, which triggered a civil war with armed resistance groups and ethnic militias. After losing control of more than half the country, the army is making significant gains again, through an...