Marcos appoints a new head of defense

Other news of the day: India is evicting 500 Muslim families in Assam; Myanmar’s coup junta forces citizens to participate in electoral propaganda meetings; Russia and Iran want to eliminate customs duties; intense frosts in Central Asia.

PHILIPPINES

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. yesterday appointed Carlito Gálvez as Defense Chief, which caused the resignation of the head official of the Department of National Defense, José Faustino. Last week Marcos appointed Andrés Centino as head of the army, replacing Bartolomé Bacarro. The president’s moves appear to indicate a distancing from the Duterte administration, which had included retired military personnel in his government and increased the salaries of soldiers and police officers.

THAILAND

thai soldiers six suspected drug traffickers were killed in a jungle in the north of the country. The shooting occurred near the “Golden Triangle” on the border between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, a known smuggling area. The army said soldiers searched 19 backpacks belonging to the dead men and found 300 kg of ketamine and three pistols.

MYANMAR

The pro-regime militias oblige the inhabitants of the Sagaing and Mandalay regions to participate in the electoral campaign meetings of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the party linked to the coup military junta. Despite the ongoing civil conflict, the army has announced that general elections will take place in August.

INDIA

In the district of Lakhimpur, in the Indian state of Assam, the eviction of about 500 families to free up 450 hectares of land that the government considers to be illegally occupied. The residents, mostly Bengali Muslim families, said they have lived there for decades and had filed legal ownership documents, which were rejected by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.

AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN

In the last 30 years many Afghans have found refuge in Pakistan. But often they just trade one bad situation for another, due to economic hardships preventing refugees from being adequately housed. By some estimates, Pakistan has a hard time $2.2 billion to take care of the 700,000 Afghan refugees whothat there are in the country, more and more rejected because they are accused of increasing the cost of rentals.

JAPAN – USA

The United States wants to move US Navy units to the Japanese islands of Okinawa in 2026, arming them with missiles and lighter equipment to discourage the Chinese military. According to the Yomiuri newspaper, the United States has already informed Japan of the decision, which will announce it in the coming days after a bilateral meeting in Washington. Meanwhile, Tokyo has announced the new plan to increase military spending, for the first time since World War II.

RUSSIA – IRAN

Iran and Russia intend to eliminate customs duties on 90% of goods, said Rahmatulla Harmali, director of Customs at the Iran Trade Development Organization, who explained that “there will be strong growth in trade with Russia and the volume of our exports will increase up to 4 billion dollars in the next 4 years”.

CENTRAL ASIA

Anomalous atmospheric flows of particularly intense frosts are taking place in Central Asia, according to the Tashkent “Meteožurnal”, and temperatures have dropped to less than 40 degrees below zero in all countries of the region. In Kazakhstan, schools have already gone online and in Azerbaijan, children do not attend class.