'Order of Maritime Merit' bestowed on Omani official
PARIS: The French government has bestowed the 'Order of Maritime Merit' on Commodore Adil bin Hamoud al Busaidy, Head of the Maritime Security Centre (MSC), in recognition of his efforts in enhancing bilateral cooperation in the field of maritime security between Oman and France. The medal was conferred on Commodore Al Busaidy by Rear Admiral Hugues Laine, Commander of the French Forces deployed in the Indian Ocean. The ceremony took place at the headquarters of the Maritime Security Centre (MSC). — ONA
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Observer
3 days ago
- Observer
Is Europe facing civil war?
Whether the debate is occasioned by a polemical book or a movie like last year's 'Civil War', I consistently take the negative on the question of whether the United States is headed for a genuine civil war. In those debates, it's usually liberals warning that populism or Trumpism is steering the United States towards the abyss. But with European politics the pattern is different: In France and Britain; and among American observers of the continent, a preoccupation with looming civil war tends to be more common among conservatives. For years, figures associated with the French right and French military have warned of an impending civil conflict driven by the country's failure to assimilate immigrants from the Muslim world. (The great reactionary novelist Michel Houellebecq's 'Submission' famously imagines this war being averted by the sudden conversion of French elites to Islam.) Lately there has been a similar discussion around Britain touched off by an essay by military historian David Betz that argues that multicultural Britain is in danger of tearing itself apart and lately taken up by political strategist, Brexit-campaign architect and former Boris Johnson adviser Dominic Cummings in an essay warning that British elites are increasingly fearful of organised violence from nativists and radicalised immigrants alike. When I've written skeptically about scenarios for a US civil war, I've tended to stress several realities: the absence of a clear geographical division between our contending factions; the diminishment, not exacerbation, of racial and ethnic polarisation in the Trump era; the fact that we're rich, aging and comfortable, not poor, young and desperate, giving even groups that hate each other a stake in the system and elites strong reasons to sustain it; the absence of enthusiasm for organised communal violence as opposed to lone-wolf forays. Does the European landscape look different? On some fronts, maybe. Tensions between natives and new arrivals are common on both sides of the Atlantic, but ethnic and religious differences arguably loom larger in Europe than they do in the US: There is more intense cultural separatism in immigrant communities in suburban Paris or Marseilles than in Los Angeles or Chicago, more simmering discontent that easily turns to riots. At the same time, British and French elites have been more successful than American elites at keeping populist forces out of power, but their tools — not just the exclusion of populists from government, but an increasingly authoritarian throttling of free speech — have markedly diminished their own legitimacy among discontented natives. This means that neither underassimilated immigrants nor working-class whites feel especially invested in the system, making multiple forms of political violence more plausible: pitting immigrant or native rebels against the government, or pitting immigrants against natives with the government trying to suppress the conflict, or, finally, pitting different immigrant groups against one another. (English cities have already played host to bursts of Muslim-Hindu violence.) Then, too, Western Europe's economies have grown more sluggishly than America's for the last decade, reducing ordinary people's stake in the current order and encouraging alienation and resistance. Finally, there are arguably geographic concentrations of discontent — in the north of England, or in immigrant-dominated cities that Betz warns could become ungovernable — that don't exist in quite the same way in the US. All of this adds up, I would say, to a useful corrective to the progressive tendency to regard America in the Trump era as a great outlier, uniquely divided and deranged and threatened by factional strife, while liberal politics continues more or less as usual among our respectable and stable European allies. Not so: There are clearly ways in which Europe's problems and divides are deeper than our own, with economic and demographic trends that portend darker possibilities and the establishment attempt to keep populist forces at bay may end up remembered as accelerating liberal Europe's downfall. Yet many of the reasons to doubt the imminence of civil war in America still apply to Western Europe. The continent is more stagnant than the US but still rich, comfortable and aged; there's enthusiasm for rioting but rather less for organised violence; and for all the palpable disillusionment, it is hard to glimpse any elite faction yet emerging — right or left, nativist or 'Islamo-Gauchiste' — that would see violent revolution as an obvious means to its ambitions. Meanwhile, there are distinctive European conditions that make civil war less likely there than in the US: Smaller nations with more centralised political systems generally find it easier to police dissent and there's no Second Amendment or American-style gun culture to challenge the European state's monopoly on force. Ultimately, I agree with British writer Aris Roussinos, a pessimist but not a catastrophist, when he writes that the most likely near-future scenarios involve increasing 'outbursts of violent disorder' but not the kind of collapse of central government authority, complete with ethnic cleansing and refugee flows, that the language of 'civil war' implies. And that imprecision matters: As I've suggested before, if you use a civil-war framing to describe a world where rioting is more commonplace and assassination attempts and random forms of terrorism make a comeback, you're describing realities that big diverse societies often have to live with, using terms that misleadingly or hysterically evoke Antietam or Guernica. I don't think America in the 1960s and 1970s experienced a civil war, even though those were certainly chaotic decades. I don't think modern France, with its long tradition of student protests and urban riots, has existed in a perpetual state of civil war. And as we face a future that's clearly more destabilised than the post-Cold War era, it still behooves us to be realistic about the most plausible scenarios: We are still far more likely to be navigating a more chaotic landscape together, as fellow citizens, than shooting at one another across a sectional divide. — The New York Times
Observer
4 days ago
- Observer
Ancient Myanmar ball game battles for survival in troubled nation
Mastering control of the rising and falling rattan chinlone ball teaches patience, says a veteran of the traditional Myanmar sport -- a quality dearly needed in the long-suffering nation. "Once you get into playing the game you forget everything," says 74-year-old Win Tint. "You concentrate only on your touch and you concentrate only on your style." Chinlone is Myanmar's national game and dates back centuries. Branded a blend of sport and art, it is often played to music and is typically practised differently by men and women. This photo taken on May 8, 2025 show a man weaving cane into a chinlone ball, used in the ancient Myanmar game considered a blend between sport and art, at a workshop in Hinthada township in the Irrawaddy delta region. Mastering control of the rising and falling rattan chinlone ball teaches patience, says a veteran of the traditional Myanmar sport -- a quality dearly needed in the long-suffering nation. - To go with 'MYANMAR-SPORT-CULTURE-CONFLICT-CHINLONE,FOCUS' by Lynn MYAT and Hla-Hla HTAY (Photo by Sai Aung MAIN / AFP) / To go with 'MYANMAR-SPORT-CULTURE-CONFLICT-CHINLONE,FOCUS' by Lynn MYAT and Hla-Hla HTAY Male teams in skimpy shorts stand in a circle using stylised strokes of their feet, knees and heads to pass the ball in a game of "keepy-uppy", with a scoring system impenetrable to outsiders. Women play solo like circus performers -- kicking the ball tens of thousands of times per session while walking tightropes, twirling umbrellas and perching on chairs balanced atop beer bottles. Teen prodigy Phyu Sin Phyo hones her skills at the court in Yangon, toe-bouncing a burning ball while spinning a hula-hoop -- also on fire. "I play even when I am sick," says the 16-year-old. "It is important to be patient to become a good chinlone player." But play has plunged in recent years, with the Covid-19 pandemic followed by the 2021 military coup and subsequent civil war. Poverty rates are shooting up and craftsmen face increasing problems sourcing materials to make balls. But the rising and falling rhythm of the game offers its practitioners a respite. "When you hear the sound of kicking the ball it's like music," Win Tint, vice-chairman of the Myanmar Chinlone Federation, told AFP. "So when you play chinlone, you feel like dancing." - 'Play day is happy' - Different versions of the hands-free sport known as "caneball" are widely played across Southeast Asia. In Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia players kick and head the ball over a net in the volleyball-style "sepak takraw". In Laos it is known as "kataw" while Filipinos play "sipa" -- meaning kick. In China, people kicking around weighted shuttlecocks in parks is a common sight. Myanmar's iteration dates back 1,500 years, according to popular belief. Some cite a French archaeologist's discovery of a replica silver chinlone ball at a pagoda built in the Pyu era of 200 BC to 900 AD. It was initially practised as a casual pastime, a fitness activity and for royal entertainment. But in 1953 the game was given rules and a scoring system, as part of an effort to codify Myanmar's national culture after independence from Britain. This photo taken on May 13, 2025 shows players taking part in a game of the traditional Myanmar sport of chinlone at a court in Yangon. Mastering control of the rising and falling rattan chinlone ball teaches patience, says a veteran of the traditional Myanmar sport -- a quality dearly needed in the long-suffering nation. - To go with 'MYANMAR-SPORT-CULTURE-CONFLICT-CHINLONE,FOCUS' by Lynn MYAT and Hla-Hla HTAY (Photo by Sai Aung MAIN / AFP) / To go with 'MYANMAR-SPORT-CULTURE-CONFLICT-CHINLONE,FOCUS' by Lynn MYAT and Hla-Hla HTAY "No one else will preserve Myanmar's traditional heritage unless the Myanmar people do it," said player Min Naing, 42. Despite the conflict, players still gather under motorway overpasses, around street lamps blighted with wartime blackouts and on dedicated chinlone courts -- often ramshackle open-sided metal sheds with concrete floors. "For a chinlone man, the day he plays is always a happy day. I am happy, and I sleep well at night," says Min Naing. "On the days I don't play it, I feel I am missing something." - 'Respect the chinlone' - But Win Tint is concerned that participation rates are falling. "I worry about this sport disappearing," says master chinlone ball maker Pe Thein, toiling in a sweltering workshop in Hinthada, 110 kilometres (70 miles) northwest of Yangon. "That's the reason we are passing it on through our handiwork." Cross-legged men shave cane into strips, curve them with a hand crank and deftly weave them into a melon-sized ball with pentagonal holes, boiled in a vat of water to seal its strength. "We check our chinlone's quality as if we're checking diamonds or gemstones," adds the 64-year-old Pe Thein. "As we respect the chinlone, it respects us back." This photo taken on May 8, 2025 shows Mg Kaw, owner of a production workshop for chinlone balls, used in the ancient Myanmar game considered a blend between sport and art, in Hinthada township in the Irrawaddy delta region. Mastering control of the rising and falling rattan chinlone ball teaches patience, says a veteran of the traditional Myanmar sport -- a quality dearly needed in the long-suffering nation. - To go with 'MYANMAR-SPORT-CULTURE-CONFLICT-CHINLONE,FOCUS' by Lynn MYAT and Hla-Hla HTAY (Photo by Sai Aung MAIN / AFP) / To go with 'MYANMAR-SPORT-CULTURE-CONFLICT-CHINLONE,FOCUS' by Lynn MYAT and Hla-Hla HTAY Each ball takes around two hours to make and earns business-owner Maung Kaw $2.40 apiece. But supplies of the best-quality rattan he covets from nearby Rakhine are dwindling. There is fierce fighting in the state between the military and opposition groups that now control almost all of it. Farmers are too fearful to plunge into the jungle battleground to cut cane, says Maung Kaw, endangering his profession. "It should not be that we have players but no chinlone makers," says the 72-year-old. "I want to work as well as I can for as long as I can." —AFP
Observer
01-06-2025
- Observer
Over 1,100 migrants crossed Channel: UK govt data
LONDON: Some 1,194 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats on Saturday, a record for this year according to government data. It brings the overall number of migrant crossings this year to 14,808, an unprecedented figure despite several measures in place by the French and UK governments to curb the crossings. The latest crossings, which UK Defence Secretary John Healey described as "shocking", fall short of the all-time record of 1,300 migrants arriving on small boats in a day in September 2022. But they will still prove a headache for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been at pains to toughen his rhetoric on irregular immigration amid pressure from the far right to slash migrant numbers. Starmer unveiled tough new immigration policies this month that include doubling the length of time before migrants can qualify for settlement in the country and new powers to deport foreign criminals. Separate legislation to tackle irregular immigration, called the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, is currently going through parliament. — AFP
