Pak claims killing 11 Indian soldiers at LoC

Naypyitaw, Jul 2: A landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar has killed at least 113 people, officials say, warning the death toll is likely to rise further.

The incident took place early on Thursday in the jade-rich Hpakant area of Kachin state after a bout of heavy rainfall, the Myanmar Fire Services Department said on Facebook.

"The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud," the statement said. "A total of 113 bodies have been found so far," it added, raising the death toll from at least 50.

Photos posted on the Facebook page showed a search and rescue team wading through a valley apparently flooded by the mudslide.

'No one could help them'

Maung Khaing, a 38-year-old miner from the area, said he saw a towering pile of waste that looked on the verge of collapse and was about to take a picture when people began shouting "run, run!"

"Within a minute, all the people at the bottom [of the hill] just disappeared," he told Reuters news agency by phone.

"I feel empty in my heart. I still have goosebumps ... There were people stuck in the mud shouting for help, but no one could help them."

Tar Lin Maung, a local official with the information ministry, said authorities had recovered more than 100 bodies.

"Other bodies are in the mud. The numbers are going to rise," he told Reuters.

Fatal landslides are common in the poorly regulated mines of Hpakant, the victims often from impoverished communities who risk their lives hunting the translucent green gemstone.

The government of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi pledged to clean up the industry when it took power in 2016, but activists say little has changed.

Official sales of jade in Myanmar were worth $750.4m in 2016-2017, according to data published by the government as part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

But experts believe the true value of the industry, which mainly exports to China, is much larger.

Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources - including jade, timber, gold and amber - have also helped finance both sides of a decades-long conflict between ethnic Kachin and the military.

The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.

For the first time in the 15 years of the Global Risks Report, the climate change and environment risk has occupied all the top five slots.

According to the 15th edition of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Risks Report, the top five risks in terms of likelihood are extreme weather, climate action failure, natural disasters, biodiversity loss and human-made environmental disasters. They all fall in the one category of climate change and related environmental disasters.

WEF President Borge Brende said the world was feeling long-mounting and interconnected risks.

The report also points to how citizens are protesting across the world as discontent rises with failed systems that are creating inequality. The citizens' discontent had hardened with systems that had failed to promote advancement, it said.

"Disapproval of how governments are addressing profound economic and social issues has sparked protests throughout the world, potentially weakening the ability of governments to take decisive action should a downturn occur. Without economic and social stability, countries could lack the financial resources, fiscal margin, political capital or social support needed to confront key global risks," it said.

Listing the grim scenario, Borge said the global economy was faced with "synchronised slowdown", the past five years had been the warmest on record and cyber attacks were expected to increase this year.

The report warns that while the myriad risks were rising, time was running out on how to prevent them.

Borge said the growing palpability of shared economic, environmental and societal risks indicated that the horizon had shortened for preventing "or even mitigating" some of the direst consequences of global risks.

"It's sobering that in the face of this development, when the challenges before us demand immediate collective action, fractures within the global community appear to only be widening," he said.

The report points to grave concern about the consequences of continued environmental degradation, including the record pace of species decline.

Pointing to an unsettled geopolitical environment, the report said today's risk landscape was one in which new centres of power and influence were forming and old alliance structures and global institutions were being tested.

"While these changes can create openings for new partnership structures in the immediate term, they are putting stress on systems of coordination and challenging norms around shared responsibility. Unless stakeholders adapt multilateral mechanisms for this turbulent period, the risks that were once on the horizon will continue to arrive," it said.

Calling it a "an unsettled world", the WEF report notes that powerful economic, demographic and technological forces were shaping a new balance of power. "The result is an unsettled geopolitical landscape in which states are increasingly viewing opportunities and challenges through unilateral lenses," it said.

"What were once givens regarding alliance structures and multilateral systems no longer hold as states question the value of long-standing frameworks, adopt more nationalist postures in pursuit of individual agendas and weigh the potential geopolitical consequences of economic decoupling. Beyond the risk of conflict, if stakeholders concentrate on immediate geo-strategic advantage and fail to re-imagine or adapt mechanisms for coordination during this unsettled period, opportunities for action on key priorities may slip away," the WEF said.

In a chapter on risks to economic stability and social cohesion, it said a challenging economic climate might persist this year and members of the multi-stakeholder community saw "economic confrontations" and "domestic political polarisation" as the top risks in 2020.

The report also warned of downward pressure on the global economy from macroeconomic fragilities and financial inequality. These pressures continued to intensify in 2019, increasing the risk of economic stagnation.

Low trade barriers, fiscal prudence and strong global investment, once seen as fundamentals for economic growth, are fraying as leaders advance nationalist policies. The margins for monetary and fiscal stimuli are also narrower than before the 2008-2009 financial crisis, creating uncertainty about how well countercyclical policies will work.

The strategic partners for the WEF report included Marsh & McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group. The academic advisers were National University of Singapore, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford and Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, University of Pennsylvania.

Washington, Feb 28: US intelligence agencies are monitoring the global spread of coronavirus and the ability of governments to respond, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday, warning that there were concerns about how India would cope with a widespread outbreak.

While there are only a few known cases in India, one source said the country's available countermeasures and the potential for the virus to spread given India's dense population was a focus of serious concern.

US intelligence agencies are also focusing on Iran, where the country's deputy health minister has fallen ill during a worsening outbreak.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday the United States was "deeply concerned" Tehran may have covered up details about the spread of coronavirus. A US government source said Iran's response was considered ineffective because the government only has minimal capabilities to respond to the outbreak.

Another source said US agencies were also concerned about the weak ability of governments in some developing countries to respond to an outbreak.

The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee has received a briefing on the virus from the spy agencies. "The Committee has received a briefing from the IC (intelligence community) on coronavirus, and continues to receive updates on the outbreak on a daily basis," an official of the House Intelligence Committee told Reuters.

"Addressing the threat has both national security and economic dimensions, requiring a concerted government-wide effort and the IC is playing an important role in monitoring the spread of the outbreak, and the worldwide response," the official added.

A source familiar with the activities of the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Republican Senator Richard Burr and Democratic Senator Mark Warner, said the panel was receiving daily updates. The role of US intelligence agencies in responding to the coronavirus epidemic at this point principally involves monitoring the spread of the illness around the world and assessing the responses of governments.

They are working closely with health agencies, such as the US Center for Disease Control, in sharing information they collect and targeting further intelligence gathering.

One source said US agencies would use a wide range of intelligence tools, ranging from undercover informants to electronic eavesdropping tools, to track the virus' impact.