Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot, a frontier town along the border with Myanmar, is a harrowing window into a civil war that has suddenly escalated.
In the searing heat of early morning, the wards are packed full of patients, some with catastrophic injuries.
We walk into a room full of amputees, many recently injured by airstrikes and landmines.
Lying on a bed with his stomach held together by a bandage, we meet Maung Maung.
His voice is incredibly strained, and he can hardly move. He’s just lost his two daughters. One was two years old, the other 14.
“They were hiding in a school. I thought it would be safe. After the bomb, I saw the body of one of my daughters ripped apart,” he tells us.
Many here say they’re too terrified to return to their home country and that fighting is now a daily threat.
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For decades, Dr Cynthia Maung, founder of the clinic in Thailand, has seen the graphic side effects of the world’s longest-running civil war, a brutal clash between Myanmar‘s military and a mix of pro-democracy groups and local ethnic rebel armies.
In recent weeks though, she says the number of patients coming to her almost doubled to 500 a day.
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“This is the worst in my time in 35 years here. This is the worst situation,” says Dr Maung.
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Eyewitness: Myanmar fighting intensifies
As we talk, there are patients of all ages. She is their great hope, but she’s juggling increasingly complex and desperate cases.
There’s recently been a sharp increase in those coming here wounded by bombs.
The embattled ruling junta has increasingly been carrying out airstrikes in the face of big losses. The resistance now controls more than half of Myanmar’s territory.
One of the most symbolic defeats came two weeks ago in Myawaddy. The small town has an outsized economic role, known as the so-called “gateway to Thailand”.
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Eyewitness: Myanmar fighting intensifies
It has long been a focal point for many of the ethnic and pro-democracy groups, but rarely looked vulnerable.
Yet two weeks ago, rebel forces led by the Karen ethnic army made their move, stunning observers by taking the town.
Social media videos show the military seemingly launching an operation to retake it – but their convoy is ambushed, resistance fighters taking over their vehicles and sending them fleeing.
At the top of a hill on the Thai side of the border, the army is watching everything closely. There’s a nervousness and tension that hasn’t been there since the coup in 2021.
Sub-Lieutenant Chuchat Farangtong tells me: “I felt the resistance groups were well prepared.
“There were signs before they attacked. My unit could see their manpower and their weapons. And there were civilians waiting along the river getting ready to cross over.”
Now it seems control of the town could be shifting once again, with video emerging on Tuesday of a Junta soldier from 275th Battalion in Myawaddy raising their flag. Reports say fighters of the KNA faction, a Border Guard Force, allowed them through to re-establish control. We may well see more clashes ahead.
In the past few days alone, thousands have fled the fighting in Myanmar, many running away from conscription driven by a military desperately in need of more men.
Among them is 19-year-old Nyi Nyi, now in hiding in Thailand after secretly crossing the border – a terrifying journey that took three days.
“When I was fleeing, most of my friends got arrested by the military,” he says.
“They were interrogated and tortured. They trained them for just three weeks and then sent them to the frontline.”
He claims opponents are being brutally attacked by a military desperate to cling to power: “They starve opponents, put them in stress positions and beat them until they bleed from their ears.”
We asked the ruling junta about his allegations. They did not respond to our request for comment.
Myanmar’s military government has been losing ground in its borderlands for months, as pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups have launched a series of successful offensives.
That’s been made possible by previously disparate groups coming together.
It is unlikely the ruling military government is at risk of being overthrown imminently, but we haven’t seen a shift like this for years.
That’s a challenge for neighbouring countries trying to navigate their relationship with Myanmar, the creeping violence on the border areas and the exodus of Myanmar’s people.
We went on patrol with the Thai police who seem to be trying to play the role of protector and enforcer, helping some find refuge and detaining others.
They tell us they’ve arrested up to 30 people trying to cross illegally into Thailand every day.
“I’m worried that the bullets are flying to the Thai side,” Lieutenant Manop Sivadumrong says.
“So, we’ve deployed border police and provincial police along the border to prevent illegal migrants and to help the Myanmar people on both sides in case they are injured.”
It is a delicate balance for them and many other countries – one by-product of a conflict many have ignored.
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But the international community is slowly waking up.
China, the US, and Thailand are reassessing their strategies. Whatever happens next, the future of Myanmar will probably remain splintered, with no one authority in charge.
And a splintered state will likely reap havoc on innocent civilians and continue to spill across national borders.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.