Category World News

A veteran of Myanmar’s traditional sport says that having the ability to control the constantly rising and falling rattan chinlone ball instills patience.

Win Tint, 74, says, “Once you start playing the game, you forget everything.”

You focus solely on your style and not on your touch.

The national game of Myanmar, Chinlone, dates back a long time. It is frequently accompanied by music and features a fusion of sport and art, with both men and women typically performing in distinctive ways.

In a game of “keepy-uppy,” teams of men form a circle, passing the ball among themselves using stylized foot, knee, and head movements with an unmistakable scoring formula.

Women, in contrast, play solo in a manner reminiscent of circus shows, rolling tightropes, spinning umbrellas, and balancing on chairs slung high on beer bottles.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the military coup of 2021 and the subsequent civil conflict, participation has decreased in recent years.

The supply of the materials for the balls is growing, and artisans are finding it harder to source.

Caneball, a hands-free sport, is practiced frequently throughout Southeast Asia.

In the volleyball-style game “sepak takraw” in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, players send the ball over the net using their feet and heads.

It is known as “kataw,” while Filipinos practice the laos game with “sipa,” which means kick.

In parks, it is common to see people in China kick weighted shuttlecocks.

According to some, Myanmar’s version dates back 1,500 years.

A French archaeologist discovered a replica silver chinlone ball at a pagoda from 200 BC to 900 AD, which demonstrates its longevity.

The original purpose of the game was to provide royal entertainment as well as a casual pastime.

However, as part of efforts to define Myanmar’s national culture after its independence from Britain, formal rules and a scoring system were added in 1953.

According to player Min Naing, 42, “No one will preserve Myanmar’s traditional heritage unless the Myanmar people do it.”

Players continue to gather beneath motorway flyovers, around wartime blackouts, and on purpose-made chinlone courts, which are frequently open-sided metal sheds with concrete floors.

While working in a sweltering workshop in Hinthada, 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Yangon, master chinlone ball maker Pe Thein says, “I worry about this sport disappearing.”

“That’s the reason we’re passing it on through our hands.”

Men who are shave cane from their legs into strips, curve them with a hand crank, and skillfully shape them into pentagonal holes-sized balls before boiling them in pots of water to increase their durability.

The 64-year-old Pe Thein says, “We check our chinlone’s quality as if we’re checking diamonds or gemstones.”

It respects us back as we do the Chinese, it does the same.

Maung Kaw, the business owner, receives $2.40 from each ball after about two hours of production.

However, he is obtaining a lot of the premium rattan from the western Myanmar state of Rakhine.

Supplies are now in danger due to fierce fighting between military forces and opposition groups, which currently control nearly all of the state.

Three members of one family were killed in a Russian drone strike in the Chernihiv region’s northern town of Pryluky, according to Ukrainian authorities.

A local first responder’s wife, daughter, and one-year-old grandson were killed in the attack, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko on Thursday morning.

When Russia launched six drones into the town overnight, the family was one of five killed, according to regional governor Viacheslav Chaus.

He claimed that six more people had been taken to the hospital.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, blasted the attacks and accused Moscow of “constantly trying to buy time for itself by killing.”

When it doesn’t feel the world’s pressure and condemnation are strong enough, it kills again, he wrote on X.

According to Zelenskyy, Russia targeted the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, and Kherson regions with 103 drones and one ballistic missile over the course of one night.

“This is yet another reason to put maximum pressure on one another.” We demand that the United States, Europe, and everyone else in the world take action to truly change these terrible circumstances, he urged.

According to Klymenko, 18 people were hurt in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, including four children.

Anastasiia Meleshchenk, a resident, reported to the Reuters news agency that her child managed to escape into the hallway after the overnight strike had entered her neighbor’s apartment.

After the previous attack, she claimed that the workers in my apartment had just finished their repairs.

Russia did not respond right away.

Later on Thursday, Ukrainian authorities reported that two people had died as a result of a Russian attack that occurred the day before in the Poltava region, eastern Ukraine.

Senior regional official Volodymyr Kohut wrote on Telegram that “sadly, doctors failed to save the lives of two people who were seriously injured as a result of an enemy attack on the training ground.”

Ukraine’s military claimed that it fired missile systems at Bryansk regional missile systems, which it claimed were preparing to attack Ukraine.

Russia promises to respond.

The attacks come after Ukraine used 117 unmanned aerial vehicles launched from containers close to the targets in a campaign known as “Spider’s Web” to attack four of Russia’s military airfields in Siberia and the far north in a strike.

Seven people were also killed when Russia accused it of bombing rail bridges in the south of the nation.

Russian military will act as and when necessary, according to Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, on Thursday.

Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister of Russia, stated on Thursday that the facilities’ warplanes were infected and would be repaired.

Up to 20 warplanes were hit, according to two US officials who spoke to Reuters, and about 10 were destroyed.

Despite the two conflicting parties holding direct talks in Turkiye to end the conflict, fighting and aerial attacks have recently gotten worse and worse.

According to John Hendren, a reporter from Kyiv, the US Embassy has warned Ukrainian citizens that significant strikes are on the horizon.

United States President Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Wednesday banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the US. Heightened restrictions on entering the US have been put in place for nationals of seven more countries.

The travel ban is Trump’s latest move in the immigration crackdown that he promised on the campaign trail before last year’s presidential election.

Trump said the measures would help to “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors”.

Here is what we know about the travel ban so far:

Which countries’ citizens are fully restricted from travelling to the US?

The 12 countries whose nationals are fully restricted from travelling to the US under Trump’s travel ban are:

• Afghanistan
• Myanmar
• Chad
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Equatorial Guinea
• Eritrea
• Haiti
• Iran
• Libya
• Somalia
• Sudan
• Yemen

Which countries are subject to partial restrictions?

The seven countries subject to partial restrictions are:

• Burundi
• Cuba
• Laos
• Sierra Leone
• Togo
• Turkmenistan
• Venezuela

How will Trump’s travel ban work?

Citizens from the 12 countries subject to a full ban on travel to the US will face a complete suspension of immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

Citizens from the seven countries which have been placed under partial restrictions will no longer be able to apply for immigrant visas or non-immigrant temporary visas covering permanent immigration, student visas and tourism visas including B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M and J. They will still be able to apply for some temporary visas, however.

Unlike an executive order, a presidential proclamation is not legally binding but generally signals a policy shift.

The new rules apply only to people outside the US at the time of the proclamation and who did not yet hold a valid visa at the time of the proclamation.

Are there any exceptions to the travel ban?

Yes. The new suspension and restrictions will not apply to:

• Lawful permanent residents of the US, also known as green card holders.
• Existing visa holders.
• Foreign diplomats travelling under certain non-immigrant visa categories.
• Dual nationals of the 19 countries included in the ban, if they are travelling on a passport of a country that is not subject to the ban.
• Athletes or members of an athletic team, such as coaches, people performing a support role and immediate relatives, travelling for a major sporting event such as the World Cup or Olympics.
• Immediate family immigrant visas (IR-1/CR-1, IR-2/CR-2, IR-5) “with clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship (eg DNA)”.
• Adoptees.
• Afghan Special immigrant visas.
• Special immigrant visas for US government employees.
• Immigrant visas for ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran.

How many people could this affect?

A total of 363,549 people from the 19 listed countries entered the US in the fiscal year 2022 – the most recent year on record for arrivals – according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

Some 250,234 of these people were from Venezuela, which is subject to partial restrictions only.

A further 66,563 of these people were from Haiti, which now faces a complete travel ban.

Why has Trump banned arrivals to the US from these countries?

Trump cited security threats and “foreign terrorists” as grounds for the ban.

In a video posted on Wednesday on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado “has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas”.

On June 1, police arrested a man who threw incendiary devices towards a group of people attending a rally for the release of captives taken from Israel on October 7, 2023 and held in Gaza. The FBI said it was investigating the incident as “an act of terror”.

Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman was charged with a federal hate crime, as well as an array of state charges, according to an affidavit by the US Department of Justice. Soliman is an Egyptian national who has also lived in Kuwait. Neither of these countries is on Trump’s list of banned countries.

In a Truth Social post, Trump blamed “[former US President Joe] Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy” for allowing Soliman into the country. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said the suspect in the Boulder incident had overstayed a tourist visa, without naming Soliman.

A fact sheet published by the White House stated a specific justification for the exclusion of each country on the new travel ban list.

These justifications included that large numbers of citizens had overstayed their visas, that the countries had a poor record of cooperating with the US to receive their citizens back if they had overstayed in the US, or that the countries were affected by war.

According to the most recent figures from the US Department of Homeland Security, nationals of Chad had the highest overstay rate, at 49.5 percent of those arriving in the US on a visa. Others with high overstay rates were Equatorial Guinea (22 percent), Eritrea (20 percent) and Yemen (19.8 percent).

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order, calling on his state department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries”. He referred to this order in his video announcement of the travel ban.

When does the travel ban take effect?

The travel ban will take effect on June 9 at 12:01am EDT (04:01 GMT).

Has Trump done this before?

Yes, Trump enacted a travel ban – dubbed the “Muslim ban” as all but one of the countries on the list at that time were Muslim-majority – during his first term in 2017.

In his Wednesday Truth Social video, Trump said: “In my first term, my powerful travel restrictions were one of our most successful policies and they were a key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil.”

That earlier ban went through several revisions. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2018. In 2021, Biden repealed this ban, calling it “a stain on our national conscience”.

Could more countries be added to this travel ban in the future?

Yes. In his Truth Social video announcement, Trump said “the list is subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made.

“Likewise, new countries can be added as threats emerge around the world.”

How are affected countries reacting to Trump’s travel ban?

Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the US, said in a statement that Somalia is ready to work with the US. “Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,” he said.

Trump’s proclamation described Somalia as “a terrorist safe haven” and stated: “Somalia lacks a competent or cooperative central authority for issuing passports or civil documents and it does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures.”

Diosdado Cabello, Venezuelan interior minister and close aide of President Nicolas Maduro, said: “The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans … They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”

Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul for the second time in a month on June 2 to explore the possibility of a ceasefire. The talks lasted just over an hour and, once again, produced no meaningful progress. As with the May 16 negotiations, both sides claimed they had laid the groundwork for prisoner exchanges. But despite Ukraine’s offer to hold another meeting before the end of June, a deep and unbridgeable divide remains between Kyiv and Moscow.

More meetings are unlikely to change that. Russia continues to demand Kyiv’s capitulation to the full list of conditions President Vladimir Putin set at the war’s outset: Ukrainian neutrality, a government reshaped to suit Moscow’s interests, and the surrender of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Between the two rounds of talks, Putin even raised the stakes, adding a demand for a “buffer zone” in northern Ukraine.

Kyiv, meanwhile, remains resolute. It refuses to cede any territory and maintains that a full ceasefire along all fronts is a non-negotiable precondition for serious negotiations.

Still, both sides appear prepared to continue the diplomatic charade.

That’s because these talks are not truly about achieving peace or securing a lasting bilateral agreement. Neither side is genuinely negotiating with the other. Instead, both are using the forum to send messages to the United States – and to Donald Trump, in particular.

This dynamic persists despite Trump’s recent efforts to distance himself from the war he once claimed he could end within 24 hours of returning to the White House. That shift in rhetoric has been echoed by key figures in his administration. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who just six months ago represented opposite ends of the Republican spectrum on Ukraine – with Vance nearly endorsing surrender to Putin, and Rubio among the Senate’s most vocal Ukraine hawks – have both signalled that Trump’s White House is no longer interested in mediating the conflict. Reflecting that disengagement, there was no high-level prenegotiation meeting between US and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye ahead of the latest talks, unlike those held in May.

Yet despite Rubio’s apparent reversal – likely intended to align with Trump – Ukraine still enjoys broad support in the US Senate, including from senior Republicans. A bipartisan bill aimed at codifying existing sanctions on Russia and imposing new ones – thereby limiting Trump’s power to roll them back – has garnered 81 Senate co-sponsors. The bill’s authors, Senators Lindsey Graham (R–South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), recently travelled to Kyiv to reaffirm their backing. Graham has suggested the bill could move forward in the coming weeks.

Still, Ukraine knows the bill stands little chance in the House of Representatives without Trump’s blessing. Despite Trump’s enduring animosity towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kyiv has recently adopted a more deferential posture, particularly after their disastrous February meeting in Washington. The Ukrainian government quickly signed and ratified the so-called “minerals deal” that Trump demanded last month. A subsequent meeting between the two leaders – held on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral – was notably more productive.

So far, Kyiv’s strategy of appeasement has yielded little change in Trump’s approach. While Trump has occasionally hinted at taking a tougher stance on Putin – usually in response to particularly egregious Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians – he consistently deflects when asked for specifics. For months, he has promised to reveal his plan for Ukraine “in about two weeks,” a vague assurance that remains unfulfilled. A new sanctions package reportedly prepared by his own team over a month ago still sits untouched.

Hoping that mounting battlefield violence or bipartisan pressure from the US Senate might force Trump to act, Kyiv presses on with negotiations. Just one day before the Istanbul talks, Russia launched a record-setting overnight assault on Ukraine, firing more than 430 missiles and drones. Ukraine responded forcefully: on June 1, it conducted a large-scale drone strike deep inside Russia, destroying dozens of military aircraft, including airborne command platforms and nuclear-capable bombers.

Yet these high-profile losses have done little to shift Putin’s strategy. He continues to use the negotiation process as a smokescreen, providing Trump with political cover for his inaction. Meanwhile, Russian forces are advancing, making incremental gains in northern Ukraine’s Sumy region – where they hope to establish a “buffer zone” – and pushing forward on the southwestern Donetsk front.

Ultimately, Ukraine’s ability to strike deep inside Russian territory, including potentially vulnerable targets like oil infrastructure, may have more bearing on the war’s trajectory than any outcome from the Istanbul talks. Yet neither military escalation nor stalled diplomacy seems likely to bring a swift end to the conflict.

Trump says he abhors the civilian toll of this war, even if he stops short of blaming Putin for starting it. But it is Trump’s lack of strategy – his hesitation, his mixed signals, his refusal to lead – that is prolonging the conflict, escalating its brutality and compounding its risks for global stability.

Trump’s advisers may call it “peace through strength,” but what we are witnessing is paralysis through posturing. Russia’s delegation in Istanbul was never a step towards resolution – it was a diplomatic decoy, shielding a brutal military advance. If Trump refuses to back a serious escalation in pressure on Moscow – through expanded sanctions and renewed military aid to Kyiv – he won’t just fail to end the war. He will become complicit in prolonging it. The choice before him is clear: lead with resolve, or let history record that under his watch, weakness spoke louder than peace.