Category World News

Bangkok, Thailand – A surge in rare earth mining in rebel-held pockets of Myanmar supplying Chinese processing plants is being blamed for toxic levels of heavy metals in Thai waterways, including the Mekong River.

China dominates the global refining of rare earth metals – key inputs in everything from wind turbines to advanced missile systems – but imports much of its raw material from neighbouring Myanmar, where the mines have been blamed for poisoning local communities.

Recent satellite images and water sample testing suggest the mines are spreading, along with the environmental damage they cause.

“Since the mining operation started, there is no protection for the local people,” Sai Hor Hseng, a spokesman at the Shan Human Rights Foundation, a local advocacy group based in eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, told Al Jazeera.

“They don’t care what happens to the environment,” he said, or those living downstream of the mines in Thailand.

An estimated 1,500 people rallied in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province in June, urging the Thai government and China to pressure the mining operators in Myanmar to stop polluting their rivers.

Villagers in Chiang Rai first noticed an odd orange-yellow tint to the Kok River – a tributary of the Mekong that enters Thailand from Myanmar – before the start of this year’s rainy season in May.

Repeated rounds of testing by Thai authorities since then have found levels of arsenic and lead in the river several times higher than what the World Health Organization (WHO) deems safe.

Thai authorities advised locals living along the Kok to not even touch the water, while tests have also found excess arsenic levels in the Sai River, another tributary of the Mekong that flows from Myanmar into Thailand, as well as in the Mekong’s mainstream.

Locals are now worried about the harm that contaminated water could do to their crops, their livestock and themselves.

Arsenic is infamously toxic.

Medical studies have linked long-term human exposure to high levels of the chemical to neurological disorders, organ failure and cancer.

“This needs to be solved right now; it cannot wait until the next generation, for the babies to be deformed or whatever,” Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaign director at the advocacy group International Rivers, told Al Jazeera.

“People are concerned also about the irrigation, because … [they are] now using the rivers – the water from the Kok River and the Sai River – for their rice paddies, and it’s an important crop for the population here,” Pianporn said.

“We learned from other areas already … that this kind of activity should not happen in the upstream of the water source of a million people,” she said.

‘A very good correlation’

Thai authorities blame upstream mining in Myanmar for the toxic rivers, but they have been vague about the exact source or sources.

Rights groups and environmental activists say the mine sites are nestled in pockets of Shan state under the control of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a well-armed, secretive rebel group that runs two semi-autonomous enclaves in the area, one bordering China and the other Thailand.

That makes the sites hard to access. Not even Myanmar’s military regime dares to send troops into UWSA-held territory.

While some have blamed the recent river pollution on the UWSA’s gold mines, the latest tests in Thailand lay most of the fault on the mining of rare earth minerals.

In a study commissioned by the Thai government, Tanapon Phenrat, an associate professor of civil engineering at Naresuan University, took seven water samples from the Kok and surrounding rivers in early June.

Tanapon told Al Jazeera that the samples collected closest to the border with Myanmar showed the highest levels of heavy metals and confirmed that the source of the contamination lay upstream of Thailand in Shan state.

Significantly, Tanapon said, the water samples contained the same “fingerprint” of heavy metals, and in roughly the same concentrations, as had earlier water samples from Myanmar’s Kachin State, north of Shan, where rare earth mining has been thriving for the past decade.

“We compared that with the concentrations we found in the Kok River, and we found that it has a very good correlation,” Tanapon said.

“Concentrations in the Kok River can be attributed about 60 to 70 percent … [to] rare earth mining,” he added.

The presence of rare earth mines along the Kok River in Myanmar was first exposed by the Shan Human Rights Foundation in May.

Satellite images available on Google Earth showed two new mine sites inside the UWSA’s enclave on the Thai border developed over the past one to two years – one on the western slope of the river, another on the east.

The foundation also used satellite images to identify what it said are another 26 rare earth mines inside the UWSA’s enclave next to China.

All but three of those mines were built over the past few years, and many are located at the headwaters of the Loei River, yet another tributary of the Mekong.

Researchers who have studied Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry say the large, round mineral collection pools visible in the satellite images give the sites away as rare earth mines.

The Shan Human Rights Foundation says villagers living near the new mines in Shan state have also told how workers there are scooping up a pasty white powder from the collection pools, just as they have seen in online videos of the rare earth mines further north in Kachin.

‘Zero environmental monitoring’

Patrick Meehan, a lecturer at the University of Manchester in the UK who has studied Myanmar’s rare earth mines, said reports emerging from Shan state fit with what he knows of similar operations in Kachin.

“The way companies tend to operate in Myanmar is that there is zero pre-mining environmental assessment, zero environmental monitoring, and there are none of those sorts of regulations or protections in place,” Meehan said.

The leaching process being used involves pumping chemicals into the hillsides to draw the rare earth metals out of the rock. That watery mixture of chemicals and minerals is then pumped out of the ground and into the collection pools, where the rare earths are then separated and gathered up.

Without careful attention to keeping everything contained at a mine, said Meehan, the risks of contaminating local rivers and groundwater could be high.

Rare earth mines are situated close to rivers because of the large volumes of water needed for pumping the extractive chemicals into the hills, he said.

The contaminated water is then often pumped back into the river, he added, while the groundwater polluted by the leaching can end up in the river as well.

“There is definitely scope for that,” said Meehan.

He and others have tracked the effect such mines have already had in Kachin – where hundreds of mining sites now dot the state’s border with China – from once-teeming streams now barren of fish to rice stalks yielding fewer grains and livestock falling ill and dying after drinking from local creeks.

In a 2024 report, the environmental group Global Witness called the fallout from Kachin’s mining boom “devastating”.

Ben Hardman, Mekong legal director for the US advocacy group EarthRights International, said locals in Kachin have also told his team about mineworkers dying in unusually high numbers.

The worry now, he adds, is that Shan state and the neighbouring countries into which Myanmar’s rivers flow will suffer the same fate as has Kachin, especially if the mine sites continue to multiply as global demand for rare earth minerals grows.

“There’s a long history of rare earth mining causing serious environmental harms that are very long-term, and with pretty egregious health implications for communities,” Hardman said.

“That was the case in China in the 2010s, and is the case in Kachin now. And it’s the same situation now evolving in Shan state, and so we can expect to see the same harms,” he added.

‘You need to stop it at the source’

Most, if not all, of the rare earths mined in Myanmar are sent to China to be refined, processed, and either exported or put to use in a range of green-energy and, increasingly, military hardware.

But, unlike China, neither Myanmar, Laos nor Thailand have the sophisticated processing plants that can transform raw ore into valuable material, according to SFA (Oxford), a critical minerals and metals consulting firm.

The Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a local think tank, says Chinese customs data also show that Myanmar has been China’s main source of rare earths from abroad since at least 2017, including a record $1.4bn-worth in 2023.

Myanmar’s exports of rare earth minerals were growing at the same time as China was placing tough new curbs on mining them at home, after witnessing the environmental damage it was doing to its own communities. Buying the minerals from Myanmar has allowed China to outsource much of the problem.

That is why many are blaming not only the mine operators and the UWSA for the environmental fallout from Myanmar’s mines, but China.

The UWSA could not be reached for comment, and neither China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor its embassy in Myanmar replied to Al Jazeera’s emails seeking a response.

In a June 8 Facebook post, reacting to reports of Chinese-run mines in Myanmar allegedly polluting Thai rivers, the Chinese embassy in Thailand said all Chinese companies operating abroad had to follow local laws and regulations.

The embassy also said China was open to cooperating with Mekong River countries to protect the local environment, but gave no details on what that might entail.

Thailand has said it is working with both China and Myanmar to solve the problem.

In a bid to tackle the problem, though, the Thai government has proposed building dams along the affected rivers in Chiang Rai province to filter their waters for pollutants.

Local politicians and environmentalists question whether such dams would work.

International Rivers’ Pianporn Deetes said there was no known precedent of dams working in such a manner in rivers on the scale of the Mekong and its tributaries.

“If it’s [a] limited area, a small creek or in a faraway standalone mining area, it could work. It’s not going to work with this international river,” she said.

Naresuan University’s Tanapon said he was building computer models to study whether a series of cascading weirs – small, dam-like barriers that are built across a river to control water flow – could help.

But he, too, said such efforts would only mitigate the problem at best.

Dams and weirs, Tanapon said, “can just slow down or reduce the impact”.

A Muslim American group has sent a letter to the administration of President Donald Trump urging it to investigate the death of United States citizen Khamis Ayyad in a settler attack in the occupied West Bank.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Ayyad’s family has “no confidence in any investigation conducted by Israeli authorities”.

The letter, penned by CAIR and its Chicago chapter, was sent on Wednesday, almost a week after Ayyad’s death on July 31.

Addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi, it underscored legal provisions, including the US-Israel Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), that would enable Washington to investigate Ayyad’s death.

“The Department of Justice has previously relied on these very statutes to investigate the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, which killed several Americans. Yet it has failed to apply them when the perpetrators are Israeli,” the letter read.

“This double standard is indefensible and is a CLEAR act of discrimination. American citizenship must not be selectively protected based on the identity or political alliances of the killer.”

Ayyad, a Chicago area resident and father of five, was one of two US citizens killed in settler attacks in the West Bank in July.

According to Ayyad’s family, settlers torched cars outside his home in the town of Silwad, north of Ramallah, last week.

Ayyad woke up to put out the fire, but then the Israeli army showed up at the scene and started firing tear gas in his direction.

The family believes that Ayyad died from inhaling tear gas and smoke from the burning vehicles.

Earlier in July, Israeli settlers also beat to death 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet, a Florida native, near the West Bank village of Sinjil.

The US government has acknowledged Ayyad’s death but stopped short of denouncing it or even calling for an investigation.

“We can confirm the death of a US citizen in the town of Silwad in the West Bank,” a US State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera last week.

“We offer condolences to the family on their loss and are providing consular assistance to them. We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank.”

According to CAIR, US officials have not reached out to Ayyad’s family.

William Asfour, the operations coordinator for CAIR-Chicago, said the State Department’s statement shows that “Palestinian lives are not valued” by the US government.

“This statement from the State Department seems more like formalities than any actual concern,” Asfour told Al Jazeera. “We want to see direct action. Holding the terrorist settlers accountable is a step in the right direction.”

After Israeli soldiers or settlers kill American citizens, the US usually calls on Israel to investigate.

But Israel rarely prosecutes anyone for abuses against Palestinians. Rights advocates have long argued that Israel is not equipped to investigate its own crimes.

For example, no charges have been brought in the case of Musallet’s fatal beating nearly one month later.

The CAIR letter stressed that Israel has a “well-documented and deeply troubling history of distorting facts, fabricating narratives, and systematically exonerating its soldiers and illegal settlers”.

Since 2022, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 10 US citizens. None of the cases have resulted in criminal charges.

“The murder of Khamis Ayyad must mark a turning point. The time to stop hiding behind legal technicalities and political convenience is now. Inaction is complicity,” the CAIR letter said.

On Monday, Congressman Chuy Garcia, who represents a district in the Chicago area, also called for the US to launch its own probe into Ayyad’s death.

As the nation continues to struggle with rampant gang violence, corruption, and economic insecurity, Haiti has appointed businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr as head of its transitional presidential council.

The Villa d’Accueil, a colonial-style mansion in a Port-au-Prince suburb, hosted Saint-Cyr’s inauguration ceremony on Thursday.

At the ceremony, Saint-Cyr remarked, “We must restore state authority.” The insecurity we face is undoubtedly related to it, but it also reflects our lack of courage, vision, and irresponsibility.

Even Saint-Cyr’s inauguration was a sign of the unrest Haiti experienced. Nearly 90% of Port-au-Prince’s gang-controlled area has seen a significant displacement of the federal government.

One well-known gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, even threatened to disrupt Saint-Cyr’s inauguration on Thursday morning.

In a video posted online, Cherizier stated, “We have decided to march on the premier’s office and the Villa d’Accueil to end it all.

People of Haiti, take good of yourselves and help us, he urged the residents of Port-au-Prince to assist him and his fighters as they approached the mansion.

However, Cherizier ultimately had no success. A security mission led by Kenya and supported by the United Nations made a statement outlining the increase in police patrols in the area.

According to the statement, “Armed gangs had plotted to disrupt national stability and render the country ungovernable,” claiming that law enforcement had been able to stop those plans.

However, Saint-Cyr’s appointment has drawn criticism for what it represents in the country’s devastation.

Both Alix-Didier Fils-Aime, the prime minister of Haiti, and Saint-Cyr are light-skinned, mixed-race businesspeople who both made money in the private sector. While Fils-Aime led an online business, Saint-Cyr worked in the insurance sector.

Only 5% of Haitians identify as mixed race, compared to the majority of people who are Black. Latin America’s poorest nation is the one it is.

Some critics worry that Haiti’s government, which has traditionally relied on the wealthy and people with lighter skin, will experience a downward trend.

Since 2016, there hasn’t been a presidential election in the nation, and there has been more unrest since Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021.

Criminal organizations have criticized the current government leadership as ineffective and corrupt while utilizing the power vacuum to expand their own influence.

By the end of that year, three of its members had been charged with corruption despite having only been established in April 2024. They had all denied wrongdoing.

The transitional presidential council has been a rotating leadership position for nine members, who are widely unpopular.

Before the council’s final meeting on February 7, 2026, Saint-Cyr is supposed to be its leader. The council and Saint-Cyr are expected to give the election’s winner control at that point.

Elections for positions in the federal government are scheduled to take place in three stages, starting in November and culminating in the presidential election in February. However, opponents warn that those plans could be thwarted by gang violence.

Between October 2024 and June this year, according to the UN, 4, 864 people died in Haiti.

Nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result of violent threats that have forced essential services, including hospitals and roads, to close.

Saint-Cyr pleaded with the international community to provide additional resources in response to Haiti’s humanitarian situation, which is regarded as one of the worst in the world.

At Thursday’s ceremony, Saint-Cyr urged all international partners to increase their support, send more soldiers, and train more people. I’m urging the security forces to increase their operations.

There were ambassadors from a number of foreign nations present. He made some remarks about them.

According to Saint-Cyr, “our nation is experiencing one of its greatest crises in all its history.” Not the time for beautiful speeches, he said. The time has come to take action.

Gaza health authorities say nearly 200 people, including 96 children, have died of hunger in Gaza, as the starving population battles against the odds to get food from dangerous airdrops and deadly aid hubs run by the GHF.

As Israel’s man-made famine under the ongoing blockade tightened its grip on the enclave, hospitals recorded four more deaths from “famine and malnutrition” on Thursday – two of them children – bringing the total to 197.

Amid the mounting death toll, World Health Organization (WHO) director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that about 12,000 children younger than five were suffering from acute malnutrition in July – the highest monthly figure ever recorded.

The scenes in Gaza City are “apocalyptic”, said Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili, with hundreds of people scrambling for scraps from aid pallets airdropped among the rubble of destroyed buildings.

“Here the fight is not over food, but for survival,” he said.

Mustafa Tanani, a displaced Palestinian at the scene, said that some of the food had failed to land and was “hanging up high” between the buildings, making it “too risky” to try to reach. “It’s like a battle here. We come from far away and end up with nothing,” he said.

“Everyone is carrying bags of aid, and we don’t even manage to get anything. The planes are dropping aid for nothing. Look where they threw it. Up there, between the buildings. It’s dangerous for us,” he said.

Children at risk

Two children died of hunger in Gaza on Thursday, including a two-year-old girl in the al-Mawasi area, according to Nasser Hospital.

Raising the alarm over chronic child malnutrition, the United Nations said that its partners were able to reach only 8,700 of the 290,000 children under age five who desperately needed food and nutritional supplements.

Amjad Shawa, the head of the NGO Network in Gaza, told Al Jazeera Arabic that at least 200,000 children in the Gaza Strip suffer from severe malnutrition, with many deaths caused by a lack of baby formula and nutritional supplements under Israel’s blockade, in place since March.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said that only 92 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday, far less than the 500-600 that the United Nations estimates are needed daily to meet basic needs.

Most of the aid that did make it in was prevented from reaching its intended recipients due to widespread “looting and robbery”, as a result of “deliberate security chaos” orchestrated by Israel, said the office.

‘Orchestrated killing’

As the hunger crisis deepened, Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French-language acronym MSF, called for the closure of the notorious US- and Israeli-backed GHF, which runs deadly aid hubs where more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed trying to reach food.

The NGO published a report on Thursday featuring testimony from front-line staff that Palestinians were being deliberately targeted at the sites, which they said amounted to “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.

MSF operates two healthcare centres – al-Mawasi and al-Attar clinics – in direct proximity to GHF sites in southern Gaza, which received 1,380 casualties within seven weeks, treating 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15.

“In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians,” said the report.

MSF patient Mohammed Riad Tabasi told Al Jazeera he had seen 36 people killed in the space of 10 minutes at a GHF site. “It was unbearable,” he said. “War is one thing, but this … aid distribution is another. We’ve never been humiliated like this.”

Deadly strikes

As the population battled for survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News his country intended to take military control of all of Gaza.

On Thursday, Israel continued to launch deadly air strikes on residential areas, killing at least 22 people.

In Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported that a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed five civilians.

An attack on the municipality of Bani Suheila, east of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city, killed at least two people, according to a source from Nasser Hospital.

Six others were killed in earlier attacks in the Khan Younis area. One child died while attempting to retrieve airdropped aid there.

In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, at least one person was killed, according to a local medical source.

Palestine’s Wafa news agency reported several deadly attacks in Gaza City, one targeting a tent in the city’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood that killed at least six people.

The second attack targeted a separate residential area in the city, killing a woman and injuring others, said Wafa.

“Israel’s military escalation continues without any sign of abating. And civilians are still bearing the brunt of this conflict,” said Abu Azzoum.