Myanmar: Army increasingly weakened by internal spies

Today's news: Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missiles; In Hong Kong also drones, artificial intelligence and new surveillance cameras; Adylbek Kasymaliev was appointed as the new prime minister of Kyrgyzstan; The Syrian provisional government wants to create special courts for those who committed crimes during the regime. 

MYANMAR

The Myanmar army is also imploding from within: the BBC reports on the case of spies secretly working for pro-democracy rebels. The army only has full control over less than a quarter of Myanmar's territory. The junta still controls major cities and remains ‘extremely dangerous’, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar. But it has lost significant territory in the past 12 months. Soldier spies appear loyal to the army, but secretly work for pro-democracy rebels.

PAKISTAN

Pakistan, which has a nuclear arsenal, is developing long-range basestar missiles that could enable it to strike targets far beyond South Asia, making it an ‘emerging threat’ even to the US. The surprise revelation by Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer underscored how the once close ties between Washington and Islamabad have deteriorated since the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

HONG KONG

Hong Kong authorities are stepping up surveillance of the city's 7 million inhabitants with plans to deploy automated police drones, artificial intelligence and thousands of new cameras in public places, including taxis, according to a recent government announcement. Police are currently installing an additional 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places, including the controversial smart lampposts targeted by protesters in 2019.

KYRGYZSTAN

Kyrgyzstan's president, Sadyr Žaparov, officially appointed Adylbek Kasymaliev as the new prime minister and head of the presidential administration, also appointing the new vice-premier Daniar Amangeldiev and the new economics minister, Bakyta Sydykova, explaining that former prime minister Akylbek Žaparov was dismissed for ‘violation of the tax system’, urging not to ‘politicise the issue’.

SYRIA

The new Syrian rulers have pledged to create special courts for those who ‘committed crimes against Syrians’ under the regime of deposed President Bashar al-Assad, according to the spokesman for the interim government. In an interview with Al Jazeera's Osama bin Javaid, Obaid Arnaut said that a key part of the new government's mission, which ushers in a ‘new era’, is to restore the population's confidence in the rule of law and the country's judicial system.

RUSSIA - UKRAINE - NORTH KOREA

As Currentime's military affairs specialists inform us, attacks against Ukrainian positions are taking place in the Kursk region by groups of North Korean soldiers, whose ranks have been replaced by new units after heavy losses, with the tactic of frontal attack in compact rows under Russian cover going over the corpses of comrades, literally as ‘cannon fodder’.

ARMENIA

The director of the consulting company Ameria, Tigran Džrbašyan, stated that Armenia is facing a ‘difficult demographic challenge’, which he called the ‘perfect storm’, in the face of the worldwide decline in the birth rate as a result of women's activism in the social sphere, the prevalence of industry over agriculture, and the transmigration of the population from the countryside to the cities, and Armenians are also involved in these processes.

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