PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has instructed the nation’s military to destroy all of its American weapons or dump them in warehouses after the U.S. imposed an arms ban on the East Asian country over its close ties with China and alleged human rights issues. “I order all army units to immediately review arms and military data-x-items that Cambodia currently has. (We) must recall all U.S. arms and military data-x-items if there are any -- put them in warehouses or destroy them accordingly,” Hun Sen declared in a Facebook post. “(The U.S. arms embargo) is a warning message to the next generation of Cambodians who lead the government that if they want an independent defense sector, please don’t use U.S. weapons,” he emphasized. Downplaying the quality of U.S.-made armaments and military hardware, the Cambodian prime minister also insisted that “a lot of those who use U.S. arms lost wars,” citing Afghanistan as a case in point. Washington imposed an arms embargo on Cambodia on Wednesday, citing unspecified Chinese activities there, as well as purported concerns about human rights and corruption in the Southeast Asian country.

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NEW YORK (Anadolu) – More than 4,470 migrants died globally in 2021, after dozens were reportedly killed when a truck packed with passengers crashed in Mexico, lifting it above last year’s fatality count, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) says. “COVID-19 has meant an unprecedented decrease in human mobility, but the Missing Migrants Project still documents deaths almost every day,” said Frank Laczko, director of IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre, in a statement and reported by Anadolu News Agency. Globally, the number of deaths this year is already more than the 4,236 recorded in 2020, the IOM said. More than 45,400 deaths and disappearances have been recorded since 2014, the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project said, making this an especially deadly year for the Americas and Europe. Considering fatal incidents are often recorded weeks or months later, the final toll in 2021 is likely to be much higher, and it came despite repeated calls for concrete action to reduce “tragic loss of life during migration journeys worldwide every year.” IOM said at least 54 migrants died in Thursday’s truck crash in Chiapas – the single deadliest incident for migrants in Mexico since at least 2014, when IOM began documenting deaths. Some 651 people died this year, attempting to cross Mexico’s border with the United States, more than in any year since 2014.

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PARIS (AFP) – Britain has granted another 23 licenses to French fishermen, a government spokesperson said Saturday, a day after a deadline set by Paris to resolve a post-Brexit battle over fishing rights. The EU had set London a December 10 deadline to grant licenses to dozens of French fishing boats under a Brexit deal signed last year, with Paris threatening European legal action if no breakthrough emerged. The licenses were agreed Friday night after British officials met European Union counterparts and followed what the spokesman called an “evidence-based approach” ensuring vessels qualify to work in UK waters. The EU hailed the agreement as “an important step in a long process” towards implementing the 2020 Brexit agreement and said work continued to license seven more vessels by Monday.

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DHAKA (Al Jazeera) – Bangladesh on Saturday called in the U.S. ambassador to protest sanctions by Washington against its top security officers after seven people, including the country’s national police chief, were accused by the Biden administration of human rights abuses. Washington imposed sanctions against the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which is accused of involvement in hundreds of disappearances and nearly 600 extrajudicial killings since 2018. Seven current or former officials of the Rapid Action Battalion were also sanctioned. They include Benazir Ahmed, previously the RAB chief and currently the national head of the South Asian country’s more than 200,000-strong police force. Bangladesh officials were quick to denounce the move, with foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen summoning the U.S. ambassador “to convey Dhaka’s discontent” over the decision, his ministry said. He “regretted that the U.S. decided to undermine an agency of the government that had been on the forefront of combating terrorism, drug trafficking and other heinous transnational crimes that were considered to be shared priorities with successive U.S. administrations”, it added in a statement.

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NOUMEA (AFP) – The Pacific territory of New Caledonia goes to the polls at the weekend for a third and final referendum on independence from France with campaigning marked by angry demands to call off the vote because of the Covid pandemic. The territory, some 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) east of Australia, was allowed three independence referendums under a 1988 deal aimed at easing tensions on the island group. Having rejected a breakaway from their French former colonial masters in 2018 and then again last year, the territory’s 185,000 voters will be asked one last time: “Do you want New Caledonia to accede to full sovereignty and become independent?” The vote comes against the backdrop of increasingly strained ties between Paris and its allies in the region. France regards itself as a major Indo-Pacific power thanks to overseas territories like New Caledonia. Polls open on Sunday at 8:00 am local time (2100 GMT Saturday) and close at 6:00 pm local time (0500 GMT Sunday) with the results expected a few hours later. Australia infuriated France in September by ditching a submarine contract in favor of a security pact with Britain and the United States.