The incident took place in the southern state of Johor in the early hours of Friday morning.
Two police officers have been killed and one injured in Malaysia after a man suspected to be part of the hardline Jemaah Islamiyah group stormed a police station.
The attack took place in the early hours of Friday morning in the town of Ulu Tiram in the southern state of Johor as police on duty dealt with a couple who had said they wanted to make a statement about a two-year-old incident, Inspector General of Police Razarudin Husain was quoted as saying in the New Straits Times newspaper.
While the group was talking the suspect arrived at the back of the station on a motorcycle, armed with a machete.
When an officer confronted the man, he lashed out with the machete, grabbing the policeman’s service revolver to shoot dead the second officer.
Razarudin said investigators suspected the man, who was shot dead by a third officer who was injured after being slashed with the machete, was planning to seize weapons for a “yet to be determined agenda”.
Razaurdin told Malaysian media that police raided the suspect’s house, not far from the police station, and found “numerous JI-related paraphernalia”. Five members of his family were arrested, including the suspect’s 62-year-old father who police said was a “known JI member”. The two people who were lodging the police report were also detained.
Other members of JI living in the state, which borders Singapore, were also being arrested, the Malay Mail news outlet quoted Razarudin as saying.
Jemaah Islamiyah is an al-Qaeda-affiliated group that aimed to establish a hardline Islamic state in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia.
At its height in the 2000s, JI was alleged to have members from Indonesia to Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and the Philippines, and masterminded a series of deadly bombings, including the October 2002 attack in Bali that killed more than 200 people.
Some of its most prominent leaders were Malaysian, including Noordin Muhammad Top who acted as a recruiter, strategist and financier for the group and was wanted for involvement in a string of attacks in Indonesia.
Noordin was from Johor and was reported to have founded a religious school in Ulu Tiram.
JI is banned in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
A $320m floating pier built for delivering aid has been attached to Gaza’s shore and began being used to deliver aid on Friday, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) says.
Aid groups have criticised the pier as a costly and ineffective distraction from the fact that land deliveries are the most efficient way to help Gaza.
What was initially proposed as a way to supplement aid to a starving population as Israel’s punishing war on them continues may become the only source after Israel seized and closed the Rafah land crossing with Egypt. Israelis have also begun attacking aid trucks heading to Gaza through Israeli crossings.
CENTCOM said aid trucks are “expected to begin moving ashore in the coming days” via the pier. Shipping data shows the MV Sagamore cargo ship carrying the aid is near Cyprus after waiting in Ashdod, Israel, for a few days due to bad weather.
How does the pier work?
The US has long used Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS) to land troops and equipment in areas where they have no access to a fixed pier.
It is using the same capability to build the Trident Pier for Gaza.
The project has two components, a floating offshore barge that is a first point of arrival for aid deliveries and a 550-metre (1,800ft) causeway anchored to the shore.
(Al Jazeera)
Aid is assembled and inspected in Cyprus, in the presence of Israeli officials so it requires no further checks on arrival, then departs by cargo ship – the Sagamore, so far.
When it arrives after a journey of about 15 hours, aid is unloaded onto the floating pier and then loaded on trucks driven by aid workers that board smaller US Army boats to be transported to the Gaza shore.
When the operation reaches full capacity, 150 trucks are expected to make their way into Gaza daily.
International aid organisations say a minimum of 500 trucks are needed each day.
What are the main challenges?
The project stops on bad weather days as rough seas slow down the ships while the pier is unusable in waves higher than 90cm (three feet) or winds faster than 24km/hour (15mph), according to a 2006 US Naval War College paper on safe cargo handling.
Earlier this month, CENTCOM had to pause offshore assembly of the pier due to high winds and high sea swells, moving everything near Ashdod.
The project also needs complicated logistics and security with many moving parts and details yet to be finalised.
Every step added to aid delivery increases both cost and risk, Sarah Schiffling, deputy director of Finland’s HUMLOG Institute which researches humanitarian logistics and supply chain management, said.
“We’ve got this quite complex structure of what needs to happen – and then the aid still needs to be distributed in Gaza,” Schiffling said. “If you haven’t got fuel, then the whole thing doesn’t work.”
It is also unclear who will be responsible for each stage and who guarantees the safety of aid workers unloading and distributing aid. On Thursday, CENTCOM said: “The United Nations will receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza,” but did not specify whether this would be the arrangement throughout.
International and local organisations are painfully aware that past aid distributions in Gaza have ended in tragedy.
Israel’s military has attacked aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza at least eight times since October, with Human Rights Watch saying none of the aid organisations were warned before the attacks.
On Monday, a foreign United Nations staff member was killed in an attack in eastern Rafah when the vehicle they were travelling was shot at. Last month, Israel struck a convoy belonging to World Central Kitchen, killing seven aid workers.
Why is the project controversial?
The pier has been criticised as a complicated and costly alternative that tries to deflect attention from demanding a more appropriate and much simpler solution – for Israel to open land crossings to Gaza and to secure aid trucks going in.
Israel has been ordered to open more land crossings by the International Court of Justice as part of a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
The court order in March was followed by a modest increase but aid remained nowhere near enough to meet the overwhelming need, according to UN and nongovernmental aid agencies.
Humanitarian aid had been trickling in through the Rafah crossing but came to a halt when the Israeli military seized control of the area in its offensive in the southern city.
According to Schiffling, Ashdod, just north of Gaza, would have been better for aid delivery, but there is no political willingness. “There is sea infrastructure, it’s just not available to get the humanitarian aid in to then get it across the land border into Gaza.”
(Al Jazeera)
US authorities say the pier is intended to supplement, not replace, aid deliveries over land and have called for the opening of land routes.
“We’re in a situation where anything going into Gaza is fantastic and we want more of that,” Schiffling said. “[Maritime aid delivery] can be an addition, but it cannot replace road access.”
US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address in March that the pier would “receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelter”, a move largely seen as an attempt to appease his Democratic Party’s base as he runs for re-election in November.
The pier “looks quite spectacular and demonstrates what the US military can do without it being a military intervention”, Schiffling said.
“[W]e can understand why it was great for President Biden to announce it in his State of the Union address.”
Washington has provided billions of dollars in aid as well as weapons that Israel has used in Gaza since October 7.
The act is not expected to become law, but its passage shows the depth of the election-year divide in the US over Israel.
The Republican-led US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would force President Joe Biden to send weapons to Israel, seeking to rebuke the Democrat for delaying bomb shipments as he urges Israel to do more to protect civilians during its war with Hamas.
The Israel Security Assistance Support Act was approved 224 to 187, largely along party lines. Sixteen Democrats joined most Republicans in voting yes, and three Republicans joined most Democrats in opposing the measure on Thursday.
The act is not expected to become law, but its passage underlined the deep US election-year divide over Israel policy as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seeks to wipe out Hamas fighters who attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people captive.
Palestinian authorities say at least 35,272 civilians have been killed during Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Malnutrition is widespread and much of the population of the coastal territory has been left homeless, with infrastructure destroyed.
“This is a catastrophic decision with global implications. It is obviously being done as a political calculation, and we cannot let this stand,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference with other party leaders on Wednesday.
Democrats also accused their rivals of playing politics, saying Republicans were distorting Biden’s position on Israel.
“It is not a serious effort at legislation, which is why some of the most pro-Israel members of the House Democratic caucus will be voting no,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told a news conference before the vote.
Enormous casualties in Rafah
Biden placed the hold on the transfer of the bombs this month over concerns the weapons could inflict enormous casualties in Rafah and to deter Israel from going ahead with the attack.
Early in May, Biden also told CNN that he would not be “supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah” if Israeli forces go into “population centres”.
Rights advocates, lawmakers and protesters across the US have demanded an end to the transfers, warning the president that the arms were being used for human rights violations and war crimes in Gaza.
Israel, a major recipient of US military assistance for decades, is still due to get billions of dollars of US weaponry, despite the delay of one shipment of 2,000-pound (907kg) and 500-pound bombs, and the Biden administration’s review of other weapons shipments.
As recently as Tuesday, the State Department had moved a $1bn package of weapons aid for Israel into the congressional review process, US officials said.
Daniel Perry was jailed for 25 years for shooting dead protester Garrett Foster in Austin in 2020.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has granted a full pardon to a former US Army sergeant and Uber driver who was jailed for 25 years for fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020.
Abbott, a Republican, in his pardon proclamation, cited the state’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defence law, one of the strongest such measures in the United States.
The announcement came shortly after the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole unanimously recommended a pardon for Daniel Perry and restoration of his firearm rights following an investigation that the board conducted at the governor’s request.
Perry, 37, was found guilty in April 2023 of murder in the death of 28-year-old Garrett Foster, a US Air Force veteran who was shot at a Black Lives Matter rally in Austin, the state capital, in July 2020.
The demonstration came amid a storm of protests across the country against racial injustice and police brutality in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May of that year.
Perry insisted he was acting in self-defence when he shot Foster, claiming he had no choice but to open fire with his handgun when Foster pointed the AK-47 he was legally carrying at Perry. Perry is white, as was Foster.
Perry was driving in Austin that night and had turned his Uber car onto a street where the demonstrators were marching, leading members of the crowd to believe they were in danger of being assaulted by his vehicle, according to media accounts of the incident.
During the trial, the two sides presented conflicting accounts of whether Foster levelled his gun at Perry.
‘Politics over justice’
In his pardon proclamation, Abbott said the jury’s verdict in effect “nullified” the state’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defence law. The statute removes a person’s duty to retreat from an unprovoked threat of violence before using deadly force if that person has a right to be there.
Perry’s lawyer, Doug O’Connell, said the pardon “corrects the courtroom travesty” of his client’s conviction, adding that Perry was “thrilled and elated to be free”.
“Daniel Perry was imprisoned for 372 days and lost the military career he loved,” O’Connell said in the statement, quoted by Austin television station KXAN. “We intend to fight to get Daniel’s military service characterisation upgraded to an honourable discharge.”
According to KXAN, Foster’s fiancee, Whitney Mitchell, shared her reaction in a joint statement with her mother, calling the pardon a “devastating blow” that “reopened deep wounds”.
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza, a Democrat whose office brought the case against Perry, condemned the pardon, saying the parole board and the governor had “put their politics over justice and made a mockery of our legal system”.
The parole board gave no specific reason for its recommendation but said its investigation “delved into the intricacies” of Perry’s case, including a review of police reports, court records and witness statements.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s former information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, says he did not realise that a three-word post on social media platform X on May 1 would inject his country into a heated conversation it had otherwise skirted until then: India’s noisy election campaign.
“Rahul on fire …” he wrote, reposting a video clip of Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the Indian opposition Congress party, in which he could be seen criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).
Chaudhry’s post, which came in the midst of India’s massive election process that spans seven different voting days, starting in April and ending in June, immediately went viral, racking up more than 1.8 million views. It was retweeted 1,800 times and received over 1,500 replies.
Among those who responded was Amit Malviya, the boss of the BJP’s information technology wing, who oversees the party’s vast social media machinery. Malviya accused Chaudhry of promoting Congress leader Gandhi.
“Is the Congress planning to contest election in Pakistan? From a manifesto, that has imprints of the Muslim league to a ringing endorsement, from across the border, Congress’s dalliance with Pakistan can’t get more obvious,” Malviya wrote.
The Muslim League, one of pre-Partition India’s major political forces, was behind the movement that led to the creation of Pakistan.
Ch Fawad Hussain, who served in the Imran Khan cabinet, as Minister for Information and Broadcasting, is promoting Rahul Gandhi. Is the Congress planning to contest election in Pakistan? From a manifesto, that has imprints of the Muslim league to a ringing endorsement, from… pic.twitter.com/XllqlWdlAR
— Amit Malviya (मोदी का परिवार) (@amitmalviya) May 1, 2024
A day later, Modi himself referred to Chaudhry’s post during an election rally in his home state of Gujarat.
“You must have heard. Now, Pakistani leaders are praying for Congress,” Modi said. “Pakistan is too keen to make the prince [Gandhi] the prime minister. And we already know that Congress is the disciple of Pakistan. The Pakistan-Congress partnership is now fully exposed.”
Since then, Pakistan has repeatedly figured in speeches of Modi and senior BJP leaders like Home Minister Amit Shah as a battering ram with which to both target the opposition and demonstrate the government’s muscular response during tensions with India’s western neighbour.
After a veteran Congress leader referred to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, Modi used a crude, Hindi sexist metaphor to suggest that his government would show Pakistan its place. Shah, in a speech, said that India under Modi had given a “befitting reply” to “terrorism” from Pakistan.
Modi accused the Congress-led opposition INDIA alliance of batting for Pakistan, giving the neighbour a “clean chit” when it has been accused of “terrorism.”
That increased emphasis on Pakistan contrasts sharply with the months of campaigning that preceded May, when relations between the neighbours were virtually nonexistent as an election theme.
Chaudhry, whose post seemingly set it all off, said he was stunned. “I was not expecting this kind of reaction, particularly from their PM Modi,” the politician told Al Jazeera.
Pakistan’s government has also hit back at comments by Modi and Shah, terming them an “unhealthy and entrenched obsession with Pakistan”.
The statement, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 14, said the comments by Indian leaders revealed a “deliberate intent” to exploit hyper-nationalism for electoral gains.
“The bravado and jingoism exhibited by Indian leaders expose a reckless and extremist mindset. This mindset calls into question India’s capacity to be a responsible steward of its strategic capability,” the statement further said.
Yet a Pakistani infusion in Indian elections is not new; in the past, it has on occasion even become a dominant flavour.
A nationalist narrative
The two neighbours have had a tense relationship since they became sovereign states in August 1947, after the end of British colonial rule in the subcontinent. The nuclear-armed nations have fought three major wars, and share a contentious border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule only in parts.
Modi and his BJP won a second consecutive term in power in the 2019 election, in which the party’s campaign heavily focused on Pakistan.
On February 14, 2019, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian paramilitary forces in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 46 soldiers. The Pakistan-based armed group Jaish-e-Muhammad claimed responsibility. Pakistan condemned the attack and denied any involvement. But India has long accused Pakistan of sheltering groups like the Jaish-e-Muhammad.
Days later, on February 26, Indian fighter jets crossed the Line of Control – the de facto border between the two nations in parts of Jammu and Kashmir – and bombed what New Delhi claimed were hideouts of armed fighters preparing to target India.
Pakistan hit back a day later, sending its own fighter jets into Indian-controlled territory, shooting down an Indian jet and arresting the pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, who was released two days later.
The nearly week-long skirmish between the two days brought the two nuclear-armed nations to the brink of war, merely weeks before the Indian election that year.
Subsequently, Pakistan remained a key part of the election campaign. After multiple independent think tanks and analysts concluded, based on their investigations, that Indian jets had not hit any target of significance when they entered Pakistan-controlled territory, opposition parties asked Modi’s government for evidence of the success it had claimed in the mission.
Modi flipped those questions on their head, alleging that they showed how the opposition did not trust India’s armed forces and instead believed Pakistan – which had also denied any major damage from Indian strikes – more.
Though the Indian PM has once again brought Pakistan into the election campaign, Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer of international relations at London’s King’s College, said that compared with 2019, Islamabad was now a secondary concern for New Delhi, with Beijing becoming the “principal foreign policy challenge”.
“It is true that the events of the Balakot attack in 2019 were used in the campaign, but that was a pretty unusual occurrence,” Ladwig said, referring to the town in Pakistan that Indian jets bombed. “In this election, I see the invocations of Pakistan as a way of distracting attention from the fact that India has lost territory to China and the government has been unable to significantly improve the situation or achieve a return to the pre-2020 status quo.”
Ladwig was referring to the clashes between India and China in June 2020 in the Himalayan region of Galwan, in which more than 20 Indian soldiers died, whereas China lost four soldiers.
Since then, many independent analysts have pointed to evidence that the People’s Liberation Army has taken over chunks of territory India previously controlled along their disputed border. The Indian government denies it has lost any land to China.
Is it all rhetoric?
Despite the reaction to his post on May 1, Chaudhry doubled down, and two days, he later posted another message, suggesting that religious minorities in India could provide a robust challenge to the BJP if they united.
If Modi g and BJP can be so rattled by my one tweet imagine what Muslims, Christian’s, Sikhs and Enlightened and progressive Hindus together can do? These classes must unite to defeat narrative of division and hatred support anyone who can stop menace of Modi be it Rahul or Mumta…
A few days later, Modi once again insinuated a pact between the Congress party and Pakistan, without offering any evidence.
“The Congress’s cross-border B-team has become active. Tweets are coming in from across the border to lift the Congress’s morale. In return, the Congress is giving Pakistan a clean chit in cases of terrorism,” he said.
For Qamar Cheema, an expert on international affairs and executive director of Sanober Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, the references to Pakistan in the campaign reflect the “changing nature of the idea of India”, from a secular state to a Hindu majoritarian polity.
What happens if the BJP wins again?
Many opinion polls suggest that Modi and the BJP are firm favourites to return to power for a third time.
If that happens, Chaudhry, the former Pakistani minister, said bilateral ties – already barely functional – would suffer further.
“If BJP and Modi win the election by sweeping the polls, the way they are claiming, relations with Pakistan will not improve, but instead, deteriorate even more,” he said.
But some analysts believe that despite Modi’s rhetoric, Pakistan’s endemic economic problems and India’s desire to focus its attention on the threat from China give both New Delhi and Islamabad an incentive to significantly improve relations.
Several Indian governments in recent decades, Ladwig pointed out, had tried – but failed – to work with their Pakistani counterparts to improve bilateral relations. In his first term, Modi too made a surprise visit to Pakistan, as the neighbours tried to revive talks before an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir soon after snuffed out those prospects.
“But now in his third term, Modi would be thinking about his legacy,” Ladwig said. “Some sort of lasting rapprochement with Pakistan” could serve that purpose, he added.
Some 1,000 security personnel have arrived from France to address the worst unrest in the territory since the 1980s.
Authorities in New Caledonia have described the situation in the French Pacific territory as “calmer” after Paris declared a state of emergency in response to violence that erupted on Monday night over plans to change provincial voting rules.
The officer of the high commissioner of New Caledonia, which represents the French state, said in a statement on Friday that unrest in the provincial capital Noumea had subsided, as hundreds of security reinforcements arrived from Paris.
“For the first time since Monday, the situation is calmer and more peaceful in greater Noumea,” the commission said in a statement.
However, there had been fires at a school and two businesses overnight, it added.
A resident speaks to a motorist at a temporary barricade to their neighbourhood in Noumea, as the city remains on edge [Theo Rouby/AFP]
Anger has been simmering for weeks over French plans to expand the vote in New Caledonia to outsiders who have lived on the island for 10 years or more, in a relaxation of voting restrictions agreed upon after an earlier period of political unrest in the 1980s.
The Indigenous Kanak population, who make up about 40 percent of the population, fear the move, which was adopted by the National Assembly in Paris on Wednesday, will dilute their vote and political influence.
About 1,000 extra security personnel are expected in New Caledonia, adding to the 1,700 already there, while authorities have said they will push for “the harshest penalties for rioters and looters”. Five people suspected of organising the unrest, which saw roads barricaded, businesses set on fire and looting, were placed under house arrest on Thursday.
At least five people have been killed since the violence broke out on Monday after a second police officer was killed on Thursday. Three civilians, all Kanaks, have also died, while hundreds of people have been injured.
The violence is the worst in the territory in more than 30 years and follows three failed referendums on independence that were part of earlier political agreements to ensure stability. The last referendum in December 2021 was boycotted by Kanak independence groups because it took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, and turnout was only 44 percent.
Some 1,000 more security personnel have been sent from France to help deal with the unrest in New Caledonia [Manon Cruz/Reuters]
Independence remains a popular cause in the territory, which lies between Australia and Fiji and was colonised by the French in the late 19th century.
The state of emergency, which includes a nighttime curfew and a ban on gatherings, will remain in force for 12 days.
As the war enters its 813th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Friday, May 17, 2024.
Fighting
Visiting Kharkiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the situation in the northeast was “extremely difficult” but “under control” after the military partially halted a Russian advance, most notably thwarting an invasion of Vovchansk, 5km (3 miles) from the border with Russia.
Sergiy Bolvinov, the head of police investigations in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, accused Russia of taking “30 to 40” civilians captive in Vovchansk to use as “human shields” near their command centre.
General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, said he did not believe Russia’s military had the troop numbers to make a strategic breakthrough in the Kharkiv region and he was confident Ukrainian forces would hold their lines there.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia was directing its most intense assaults on the front line near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia’s offensive has been unrelenting for months.
An air raid alert in the northeastern Kharkiv region remained in place for more than 16 and a half hours amid Russian drone and missile attacks. Officials said five drones hit parts of the city of Kharkiv, starting a fire. There were no reports of casualties. The alert was lifted in the early hours of Friday.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said a woman and her four-year-old son were killed when their car was hit by a Ukrainian drone. Two other people in the vehicle were injured.
Politics and diplomacy
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. The two held talks, walked in a park and drank tea. Xi said the two countries’ deepening relationship was a “stabilising force” in the world and that he hoped the war in Ukraine could be resolved peacefully. China has not condemned Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Putin said he was grateful for China’s efforts to resolve the crisis.
Russia expelled Adrian Coghill, the United Kingdom’s defence attache, from Moscow a week after Britain ordered Russia’s defence attache to leave London for being an “undeclared military intelligence officer”. UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said Moscow’s move was because Coghill “personified the UK’s unwavering support for Ukraine“.
Sri Lanka said it would send a high-level delegation to Russia to investigate the fate of hundreds of nationals reportedly fighting in the war in Ukraine. The Defence Ministry said social media campaigns via WhatsApp have targeted ex-military personnel with promises of lucrative salaries and citizenship in Russia, warning its nationals not to be duped.
Weapons
The United States announced sanctions on two Russian nationals and three Russian companies for facilitating arms transfers between Russia and North Korea, including ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Russia had already used at least 40 North Korean-produced ballistic missiles against Ukraine.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, denied Pyongyang was selling weapons to Russia, saying it was a “most absurd theory”, according to state media. UN monitors have found debris from North Korean missiles in Ukraine.
Denmark said it would send Ukraine a new military aid package, mostly of air defence and artillery, worth about 5.6 billion Danish crowns ($815.47m).
Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Cambodia is pushing for an infrastructural renaissance, but it will need some help from its friends abroad to chip away at an estimated price tag of $36.6bn.
That was the final sum calculated by the Cambodian government and published earlier this year in a 174-project master plan that would overhaul the national transportation and logistics network within an ambitious timeframe of just a decade.
The goal to crisscross the kingdom with expressways, high-speed rail lines and other works fits closely with the state’s longstanding wish of becoming an upper-middle-income country in 2030 and a high-income nation by 2050.
Since the unopposed ascension last year of Prime Minister Hun Manet – the son of former Prime Minister Hun Sen, the country’s leader of nearly 40 years – his new government of aspiring technocrats has pressed forward with the building campaign, beseeching foreign allies for closer ties and increased investment while assuring the public of big things to come.
“We shall not withdraw from setting our targets in building road and bridge infrastructure,” Hun Manet said at a February groundbreaking for a Phnom Penh bridge funded with a Chinese loan.
“Roads are like blood vessels to feed the organs wherever it goes … soon we will have the ability not only to just possess [material things] but also for Cambodians to build by themselves infrastructural marvels such as bridges, highways and subways.”
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has embarked on a major infrastructure drive [Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters]
Cambodia has experienced more than two decades of rapid economic growth with some of the worst infrastructure in Southeast Asia, according to the World Bank’s logistics performance index.
With the bank predicting accelerating gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the years ahead, Cambodia’s already stretched transportation system could be strained to breaking point.
While the new prime minister looks to cement his own status after his father’s long rule, making progress on hard infrastructure will present a test for his governance as well as the traditional Cambodian balancing act of international relations.
Rolling out the master plan with a to-do list of projects large and small could present an opportunity to benefit from geopolitical rivalries as foreign partners jostle for influence – especially as competition intensifies between two of its largest benefactors, China and Japan.
“I think Cambodia’s government feels it is high time to maximise whatever they can get from the donors,” Chhengpor Aun, a research fellow at Future Forum, a Cambodian public policy think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s logical that if an infrastructure project initiated by the Cambodian government is not accepted by a partner, they could still go to the other partner to fund it. It’s strategic and flexible in the way they play the big powers against themselves to try to extract benefits.”
The Cambodian government and private businesses do fund infrastructure projects in the kingdom, but China and Japan together account for much of that investment.
Both are also the only countries to hold Cambodia’s highest diplomatic designation of “comprehensive strategic partnership”, a status Japan gained just last year.
So far, China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has led the infrastructure charge with major projects such as the kingdom’s first expressway, which runs from the inland capital of Phnom Penh to the coastal city of Sihanoukville.
Meanwhile, Japan has kept its own steady agenda, focusing on a range of projects such as new wastewater treatment facilities and upgrades to existing roads.
Perhaps most notable is a Japanese-led expansion that could more than triple the capacity of the international deep sea port of Sihanoukville, the sole facility of its kind in Cambodia.
The bustling facility handles about 60 percent of the country’s import and export traffic and is increasingly congested after more than a decade of steady growth.
Under the oversight of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), crews at the port broke ground on the expansion late last year.
The planned three-part, decade-long project is included in the new master plan and has a total estimated cost of about $750m.
Sihanoukville port handles about 60 percent of Cambodia’s import and export traffic [Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP]
“Compared with Chinese [infrastructure] investment, the amount of Japanese investment is very limited,” Ryuichi Shibasaki, an associate professor and researcher of global logistics at the University of Tokyo who has studied Cambodia’s shipping industry, told Al Jazeera.
“We need to find niche markets since there is so much investment from China, to fill the gaps or adjust investment to a more broad viewpoint.”
In recent years, the BRI has tightened its focus.
Accusations of China ensnaring poorer countries in “debt traps” have caused Beijing to turn away from issuing large loans to countries to fund megaprojects – typically defined as those worth more than $1bn – in favour of a more investment-oriented tilt towards projects with good expected returns.
These are typically funded with “build-operate-transfer” agreements, in which the company overseeing the work takes on the expense of developing it in return for the revenues generated by the finished project over a predetermined period.
At the end of the agreement, which can span decades, ownership transfers to the government of the host country.
Key pieces of Cambodia’s big-picture vision will depend on that kind of financing.
‘Trying to be Cambodia’s best friend’
The kingdom’s master plan for infrastructure includes proposals for nine megaprojects worth an estimated total of more than $19.1bn.
While most of these are still being studied for feasibility, almost all have been touched at some point by JICA or the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a subsidiary of the state-owned giant China Communications Construction Company.
CRBC previously led the construction of Cambodia’s first expressway, which came online in late 2022 and has generally been hailed as a success.
The company broke ground last year on a second, $1.35bn expressway between Phnom Penh and Bavet, a city on the Vietnamese border, which is among the nine envisaged megaprojects.
It is joined by such works as another CRBC-studied expressway system that would link Phnom Penh to the major tourism hub of Siem Reap and the city of Poipet on the Thai border.
Split into two parts, construction of that road system is estimated at a total expense of $4bn. There is also an upgrade of one existing railway line to Poipet to accommodate high-speed trains for $1.93bn, plus another to Sihanoukville for $1.33bn.
The plan later calls for a light rail and subway system for the capital Phnom Penh and part of Siem Reap, all packaged together for an estimated $3.5bn.
Shipping projects also feature heavily in the plan.
The largest of these is a 180-kilometre-long, 100-metre-wide shipping canal to link the Mekong River system at Phnom Penh directly to the Gulf of Thailand. The $1.7bn channel would bypass the current, less convenient river shipping route that runs the length of the Mekong through Vietnam.
The canal is currently being studied by CRBC for its economic feasibility.
Though little detail has yet come out from that process and no company has signed an official deal to actually build the project, the Cambodian government has announced it will break ground by the end of this year.
The magnitude of the proposal, and the government’s urgency to make it a reality, has caught positive attention from the logistics industry while raising ecological concerns for its potential effects on the transboundary river system.
Poor communication with the public on the details has left residents along the proposed route confused and apprehensive of their ability to stay in their homes.
The canal itself is expected by the Mekong-focused think tank Stimson Center to negatively impact a key floodplain that spans important agricultural regions of Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Cambodian government has proposed the construction of a light rail and subway system in the capital Phnom Penh at a cost of $3.5bn [Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP]
Hong Zhang, a China public policy postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center, said the momentum of the project could see it through regardless of the concerns.
“If the project has a very strong political backing, I don’t think environmental and social impacts would be in the way or prevent it from happening,” Zhang told Al Jazeera.
Zhang added that Cambodia’s relative political and macroeconomic stability – plus its government’s pro-China stance – has likely afforded it options that other countries would not necessarily get.
“Cambodia continues to be a relatively trouble-free market for Chinese engagement compared to many other countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka or even Laos,” she said.
“Even if [the canal] not going to be economically feasible but seems to have good value in terms of its public utility, a lot of externality, this kind of project will be quite legitimate for them to still go back to the old model of borrowing from China with concessional loans, building it and then the government pays back the loan.”
Even if not all the projects in the master plan come to pass, those in the national logistics and transportation industry see a lot to like.
Matthew Owen, the project development executive for the Phnom Penh office of the Singapore-based shipping agency Ben Line Integrated Logistics, said the plan has major potential, but its success will depend on Cambodia’s ability to simultaneously improve the value of its exports.
“I don’t think it’s ‘build it and they will come’, but I think [the government] is ahead of their time,” Owen told Al Jazeera. “Having everything there means they’re going to be able to draw more people in to invest and do business.”
The scramble for large-scale public works is matched with a drive for more private-sector engagement as well, according to Owen.
Owen said the new Cambodian government has been urging international investors from across Asia to get moving on projects initiated before last year’s political handover.
“Everybody’s got an influence, everybody’s got something to gain, and it balances the influence from China,” he said.
“It’s not even a competition, it’s like a pool of countries trying to be Cambodia’s best friend. Cambodia is open to whatever country that’s open to making Cambodia better – if they want to have their own competition of who can build the biggest bridge, go for it.”
Taipei, Taiwan – Even as Taiwan prepares for the inauguration of its eighth president next week, it continues to struggle over the legacy of the island’s first president, Chiang Kai-shek.
To some, Chiang was the “generalissimo” who liberated the Taiwanese from the Japanese colonisers. To many others, he was the oppressor-in-chief who declared martial law and ushered in the period of White Terror that would last until 1992.
For decades, these duelling narratives have divided Taiwan’s society and a recent push for transitional justice only seems to have deepened the fault lines. Now, the division is raising concern about whether it might affect Taiwan’s ability to mount a unified defence against China, which has become increasingly assertive in its claim over the self-ruled island.
“There is a concern when push comes to shove if the civilians work well with the military to defend Taiwan,” said historian Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang of the University of Missouri in the United States.
On February 28, 1947, Chiang’s newly-arrived Kuomintang (KMT) troops suppressed an uprising by Taiwan natives, killing as many as 28,000 people in what became known as the February 28 Incident. In the four-decade-long martial law era that followed, thousands more perished.
This traumatic history met its official reckoning in 2018, when the Taiwan government set up its Transitional Justice Commission modelled after truth and reconciliation initiatives in Africa, Latin America and North America to redress historical human rights abuses and other atrocities.
People attend the commemoration of the February 28 Incident in Taipei [Violet Law/Al Jazeera]
When the commission concluded in May 2022, however, advocates and observers said they had seen little truth and hardly any reconciliation.
Almost from the first days of the commission, the meting-out of transitional justice became politicised across the blue-versus-green demarcation that has long defined Taiwan’s sociopolitical landscape, with blue representing KMT supporters and green the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
A recently published anthology entitled Ethics of Historical Memory: From Transitional Justice to Overcoming the Past explains how the way Taiwanese remember the past shapes how they think about transitional justice. And as that recollection is determined by which camp they support, each champions their own version of Taiwan’s history.
“That’s why transitional justice seems so stagnant now,” explained Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu, research professor at the legal research institute Academia Sinica who contributed to and edited the book. “Whatever truth it uncovers would be mired in the blue-green narrative.”
A non-partisan view, Hsu said, is to credit the DPP with codifying transitional justice and Lee Teng-hui, the first democratically elected KMT president, with breaking the taboo on broaching the February 28 Incident.
The past shaping the future
In February, Betty Wei attended the commemoration for the February 28 incident for the first time and listened intently to the oral history collected from the survivors. Wei, 30, said she wanted to learn more about what happened because her secondary school textbook had brushed over what many consider a watershed event in a few cryptic lines, and many of her contemporaries showed little interest.
“In recent years the voices pushing for transitional justice have grown muted,” Wei told Al Jazeera. “A lot of people in my generation think the scores are for previous generations to settle.”
The Transitional Justice Committee recommended the relocation of Chiang Kai-shek statues from public areas, but many remain [File: Ritchie B Tongo/EPA]
In Taiwan, the past is never past, and rather it is fodder for new fights.
As the DPP gears up for an unprecedented third consecutive term, the unfinished business of removing the island’s remaining statues of Chiang has resurfaced as the latest front in what Yang, the historian, described to Al Jazeera as “this memory war”.
More than half of the initial 1,500 monuments have been taken down over the past two years, with the remaining statues mostly on military installations.
Yang argues that is because the top brass rose through the ranks under martial law and many still regard Chiang as their leader, warts and all. For them, toppling the statues would be an attack on their history.
The statues embody “the historical legacy the military wants to keep alive,” Yang said. “That’s a source of tension between the military and the DPP government.”
On the eve of William Lai Ching-te taking his oath as the island’s next president, Taiwanese will for the first time mark the “White Terror Memorial Day” on May 19, the day when martial law was declared in 1949.
While it is clear Taiwanese have promised to never forget, whom and how to forgive has become far murkier.
As the former chairman of the Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation, the first NGO advocating for the cause, Cheng-Yi Huang lauded the government’s move to take over the KMT’s private archives in recent years but lamented there had been too little truth-seeking so far.
For example, under the February 28 Incident Disposition and Compensation Act, Huang said many have chosen to stay silent about their complicity because only victims get compensation.
However, Taiwan’s tumultuous history means the line between victim and victimiser is rarely clear-cut.
Chiang Kai-shek (centre) in 1955. Known as ‘Generalissimo’, he led a brutal military dictatorship that only ended in 1992 [Fred Waters/AP Photo]
By digging into military archives, Yang has shed light on how Chinese were kidnapped and pressed into service by the KMT in the last years of the Chinese Civil War. Those who tried to flee were tortured and even murdered. And the native Taiwanese who rose up to resist KMT’s suppression were persecuted as communists.
“Under martial law, the military was seen as an arm of the dictatorship, but they were also victims of the dictator’s regime,” Yang told Al Jazeera. “The transitional justice movement has missed the opportunity to reconcile Taiwanese society with the military.”
To Hsu, Beijing’s belligerence demands Taiwanese of all stripes find a common cause.
“As we’re facing the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, it’s imperative that we unite in forging a collective future,” said Hsu, to a standing-room-only book talk during the Taipei International Book Exhibition in late February.
“And how we remember our past will shape this future of ours.”
Police say that man who first went missing in 1998 was held by a 61-year-old neighbour just a few minutes from his home.
An Algerian man who went missing in 1998 during the country’s civil war has been found alive in his neighbour’s cellar 26 years later, according to authorities.
The country’s Ministry of Justice said on Tuesday that the man, identified alternatively as Omar bin Omran or Omar B, disappeared when he was 19 years old and was long ago assumed to have been kidnapped or killed.
But he was found alive earlier this week at the age of 45, after being held captive by a neighbour in a sheepfold hidden by haystacks just 200 metres from his old home in Djelfa, part of northern Algeria.
The ministry said that an investigation into the “heinous” crime was ongoing and that the victim is receiving medical and psychological care.
Police detained the alleged captor, a 61-year-old doorman, after he attempted to flee. The kidnapping was discovered after the suspect’s brother posted revealing information on social media, amid an alleged inheritance dispute between the siblings.
“On 12 May at 8pm local time, [they] found victim Omar bin Omran, aged 45, in the cellar of his neighbour, BA, aged 61,” a court official said.
The victim’s mother died in 2013, when the family still believed he was likely dead. Media outlets in Algeria reported that bin Omran told his rescuers he could sometimes see his family from afar, but that he felt incapable of calling out because of a “spell” his captor cast upon him.
Bin Omran’s discovery on Sunday solves a mystery that had lingered in his community since Algeria’s bloody civil war. Relatives of war victims are still seeking justice for their missing and dead loved ones.
About 200,000 people were killed in the 1990s during the war, which pitted the government against Islamist fighters. That period is sometimes referred to as Algeria’s “Black Decade”.
As many as 20,000 people were believed to have been kidnapped over the course of the war, which ended in 2002. According to SOS Disparus, an Algerian association for those forcibly disappeared during the war, about 8,000 Algerians disappeared between 1992 and 1998 alone.
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