BANGKOK (AFP) – The charred remains of more than 30 people, including women and children, were found in burnt-out vehicles in Myanmar on Saturday, a rebel group and a monitor said, accusing the junta of the attack. Myanmar has been in chaos since the February coup, with more than 1,300 people killed in a crackdown by security forces, according to a local monitoring group. “People’s Defence Forces” (PDF) have sprung up across the country to fight the junta, and have drawn the military into a bloody stalemate of clashes and reprisals. On Saturday, photos appeared on social media purporting to show two burnt-out trucks and a car on a highway in Hpruso township in eastern Kayah state, with the charred remains of bodies inside. A member of a local PDF group said its fighters had found the vehicles Saturday morning after hearing the military had stopped several vehicles in Hpruso after clashes with its fighters nearby on Friday. “When we went to check in the area this morning, we found dead bodies burnt in two trucks. We found 27 dead bodies,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity. “We found 27 skulls,” said another witness who did not want to be named. “But there were other dead bodies on the truck, which had been burned to pieces so we couldn’t count them.” The Myanmar Witness monitor said it had confirmed local media reports and witness accounts from local fighters “that 35 people including children and women were burnt and killed by the military on 24th December Hpruso township”.

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BEIJING (Al Jazeera) – China’s Ministry of Commerce has expressed “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to a United States ban on imports from Xinjiang region. The ministry described the U.S. action as “economic bullying”, state news agency Xinhua reported. U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law legislation that bans imports from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor. China dismisses accusations of abuses against Uighur minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region as lies. The U.S. law came amid mounting tensions, including appeals by activists for a boycott of February’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. The law prohibits U.S. businesses from importing goods from Xinjiang unless they can be proven not to have been made by forced labor. The measure “maliciously denigrates the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang in disregard of facts and truth”, said a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Zhao Lijian. “It seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations and grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs,” Zhao said. “China deplores and firmly rejects this.”

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ATHENS (AFP) – Greek coast guards scoured for survivors in the Aegean Sea on Saturday after the latest in a series of migrant boat accidents that have killed at least 30 people in just days. Late Friday, the coastguard found 16 bodies, including those of three women and a baby, and rescued 63 people from a boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros. According to those rescued, around 80 people had been on the vessel. Three coast guard patrol boats, private vessels, a coast guard plane as well as divers searched for more survivors, officials said. The latest tragedy -- the third since Wednesday -- came amid high smuggler activity not seen in Greek waters in months. Hours earlier, 11 bodies were recovered from another boat that ran aground on an islet north of the Greek island of Antikythera on Thursday evening. Ninety people stranded on the islet were rescued, the coastguard said. And on Wednesday, a dinghy carrying migrants capsized off the island of Folegandros, killing at least three people. Thirteen people were rescued, while dozens remain missing, Greek authorities said. Survivors gave conflicting accounts: Some said there had been 32 people on board, while others put the number around 50, a coast guard official told AFP.

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BAMAKO (Reuters) – Mali’s government has denied the presence of Russian mercenaries in the West African country after 15 Western powers accused Russia of providing material support to a deployment of private military contractors. Government spokesman Abdoulaye Maiga in a statement late on Friday denied that “elements of a private security company” had been deployed to Mali. He said “Russian trainers” were present as part of a bilateral agreement between Mali and Russia. “[Mali] formally denies these baseless allegations and demands that evidence be brought by independent sources,” Maiga said. “Russian trainers are in Mali as part of the reinforcement of the operational capacities of the National Defence and Security Forces.” Bamako was “only involved in a state-to-state partnership with the Russian Federation, its historical partner”, said the statement signed by government spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga. The Western governments alleged on Thursday that Moscow had provided material backing for the mercenaries. “We are aware of the involvement of the Russian Federation government in providing material support to the deployment of the Wagner group in Mali and call on Russia to revert to a responsible and constructive behavior in the region.”

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BASSE-TERRE (AFP) – Protesters in Guadeloupe were on Friday occupying the local legislature in the French Caribbean overseas territory, in a new flare-up of a standoff with Paris sparked by Covid rules. There have been tensions in Guadeloupe and the neighboring island French territory of Martinique during the last weeks over rules including obligatory Covid vaccinations for healthworkers that have fed into long-standing local grievances. Protesters first entered the debating chamber of the regional council while it was meeting on Thursday with several staying the night and deciding to continue their action into Friday. Councillors were able to leave peacefully. They want to negotiate with Paris over the crisis, but officials have so far indicated that there can be no talks as long as such actions are carried out. The protesters notably want all sanctions halted against healthworkers who have refused the Covid jab.