SYDNEY: An attack by a father and son on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach killed 15 people, plunging Australia into a day of mourning Monday.

Here’s what we know:

Gunfire at Bondi

Emergency services responded to reports of shots fired at 6:47pm (0747 GMT) Sunday at Bondi Beach, one of the biggest tourist draws in Australia’s largest city.

Police reported that around 1,000 people attended the annual Hanukkah event, during which the shooting occurred.

Casualties

Police say the attackers fired into the crowds, killing 15 people aged from 10 to 87.

The youngest victim, a 10-year-old girl, died later in a children’s hospital, whereas 42 people were hospitalised overnight, including five in critical conditions.

Among them are two police officers wounded in a shootout with the gunmen.

Attackers

Police say one of the assailants was a 50-year-old father who was shot and killed in a shootout with officers.

The other was his 24-year-old son, who is in a critical condition in hospital, under police guard.

Australian media named them as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed Akram.

In a statement, police said the pair used “long arms to fire into crowds of people.”.

Police believe the father, who had a license to carry six guns, used all of them in the shooting.

Police do not believe others were involved.

Terrorism

The attack was declared a terrorist incident at 9:36pm (1036 GMT) by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns.

As a result, the federal police launched a joint counter-terrorism operation.

Global condemnations

The attack sparked condemnation worldwide, led by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who described it as an act of “pure evil”.

US President Donald Trump said it was a “purely antisemitic attack”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Australia’s government of “pouring oil on the fire of antisemitism” by not acting strongly enough before the shooting.

Watch: Eyewitness captures the moment a man tackles and disarms Bondi’s shooter.

Chris Minns/Facebook

Sir Cliff Richard has revealed he has been treated for prostate cancer during the past year.

The 85-year-old singer said his cancer had “gone at the moment” and backed calls for a national screening test for men.

In an interview with Good Morning Britain, he said, “I was about to embark on a tour… I was going to Australia and New Zealand, and the promoter said, ‘Well, we need your insurance, so you’ll need to be checked up for something.’

“They found that I had prostate cancer, but the good fortune was that it was not very advanced.” And the other thing is that it had not metastasised. It hadn’t moved into bones or anything like that.

“And the cancer’s gone currently; I don’t know whether it’s going to come back. I mean, you can’t predict the outcome with these types of situations, but I am absolutely convinced that we need to get tested and checked.

Sir Cliff made the revelation.

“I think we as men… we’ve got to be seen as human beings who may die of this thing.”

Sir Cliff made the revelation in conversation with former Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan, who has himself been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer.

Mr Murnaghan asked the singer whether he backed calls for a national prostate cancer screening programme, given that the disease is “the most prevalent cancer amongst men”.

Lending his support, Sir Cliff replied, “We have governments that look after our country and those who live in it.” We all deserve to have the same ability to have a test and then start the treatments really early.

“It’s only been one year now I’ve been in touch with cancer, but in point of fact, every time I’ve talked with anybody, this has come up, and so I think our government must listen to us.”

Last month the UK National Screening Committee decided not to recommend mass screening for prostate cancer, saying the measure was “likely to cause more harm than good”.

Instead, it proposes a targeted screening programme every two years for men with specific genetic mutations, known as BRCA-1 and BRCA-2, between the ages of 45 and 61.

The news comes after King Charles revealed he had reached a “milestone” in his own fight with cancer and would be able to reduce his schedule of treatment in the new year.

Thirty years since the war there ended, Bosnia and Herzegovina is still scarred by the ethnic cleansing campaigns which tore through the country, killing about 100,000 people and displacing well over two million.

The 1992–1995 war, triggered by ethnic tensions and competing nationalist projects in the wake of the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, was marked by the systematic targeting of civilians and culminated in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide – the worst atrocity to be perpetrated in Europe since World War II.

When and why did the war in Bosnia begin?

Bosnia was one of six republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a federation created during World War II and held together for decades under President Josip Broz Tito.

After Tito’s death in 1980, economic collapse and rising nationalism, particularly in Serbia and Croatia, led to demands for independence across the republics.

Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in 1991, with Macedonia following in early 1992, accelerating Yugoslavia’s disintegration.

On March 1, 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina held a referendum in which 99.7 per cent of participating voters backed independence.

Most Bosnian Serbs boycotted the vote, however, and instead formed their own “Serb Republic” structures, which later became the Republika Srpska (RS) entity within Bosnia.

Bosnia’s push for independence was also unfolding against the backdrop of Serbia’s aggressive separatist policies under Slobodan Milošević, who sought to unify Serb-populated areas in Bosnia and Croatia.

The European Community recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state on April 6, 1992. That same month, Bosnian Serb forces, supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army and paramilitaries, launched coordinated attacks within the country to seize territory and expel non-Serb communities.

On April 5, the capital city of Sarajevo came under siege by Bosnian Serb forces, in what became the longest blockade of a city in modern European history. For nearly 43 months, the attacking forces shelled residential areas, cut off electricity and water, and tightened their grip on the capital, killing about 11,000 people.

Soon after that assault began, the United Nations Security Council imposed sweeping sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro for supporting efforts to carve up Bosnia and Herzegovina. In October 1992, Croat forces also attacked Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) areas around Prozor in southwest Bosnia, marking the start of a separate Croat-Bosniak conflict that brought its campaigns of ethnic cleansing.

How many people were killed and displaced?

The Bosnian authorities commissioned a post-war research project, which estimated that about 104,000 people, primarily civilians, lost their lives. Roughly two-thirds of those killed were Bosniaks.

International and Bosnian sources estimate that about 2.2 million people, more than half of the pre-war population, were forced from their homes as refugees or internally displaced. Most have never been able to return.

Which atrocities led up to the genocide in Srebrenica?

From the start, the war was characterised by systematic ethnic cleansing – particularly of Bosniaks – killings, mass rape, forced displacement and the destruction of cultural and religious sites. Here are some of the key events during the war.

1992 – Ethnic cleansing and the siege of Sarajevo.

Prijedor and the camps: In the northwestern region of Prijedor, Bosnian Serb authorities set up detention camps, including Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje.

Thousands of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat civilians were beaten, tortured, raped, and killed in these camps.

Research by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) described the crimes as “widespread and systematic”, targeting non-Serb citizens of the country.

Foca and Visegrad: In eastern Bosnia, Bosniaks were killed or expelled, and women and young girls were subjected to organised rape. The ICTY’s Foca case established rape and sexual enslavement as crimes against humanity.

Siege of Sarajevo: The capital, a multiethnic city, was surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces, who shelled residential areas and used snipers to target civilians on the streets.

in markets and in water queues. An estimated 11,000 people, including more than 1,000 children, perished during the siege, which lasted from April 1992 to February 1996.

1993 – ‘Safe areas’ established but massacres continue

With peace efforts failing, the UN declared Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia a “safe area” in April 1993, followed by Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde and Bihac a month later. But atrocities continued.

Ahmici massacre: In April 1993, Croat forces killed more than 100 Bosniak civilians in the village of Ahmici, central Bosnia, and burnt homes and mosques. ICTY judgements called it one of the worst acts of ethnic cleansing in the area.

Rape camps: The ICTY and rights groups also documented that rape was used as an instrument of terror, particularly in Foca – now located in Republika Srpska in the southeast of the country – where women and girls were held in “rape camps”.

Market attacks and pressure for intervention occurred between 1994 and 1995.

Sarajevo remained under siege. In February 1994, a mortar attack on the Markale market killed 68 civilians and wounded many more. A second mortar strike occurred at the same market.

in August 1995 killed 43 people. ICTY judgements and UN investigators have blamed Bosnian Serb forces for these attacks.

These and other attacks on so-called “safe areas” raised pressure on NATO and Western governments to act, setting the stage for heavier air attacks against the Bosnian Serb leadership later in 1995.

Sniper ‘safaris’ during the siege of Sarajevo

During the siege of Sarajevo, citizens were subjected to “sniper safaris”—so named as a grotesque reference to hunting expeditions— in which foreigners paid Bosnian Serb units to join them and shoot civilians from positions overlooking the city.

Following a recent Italian investigation, prosecutors in Milan are examining whether wealthy visitors from Italy and other countries travelled to Sarajevo on organised “tours” to shoot civilians for sport.

No one has yet been convicted for organising or taking part in these “safaris,” but the allegations highlight the extreme dehumanisation that accompanied the siege of the city.

It is believed that citizens from multiple countries took part. In 2022, Miran Zupanic, a Bosnian film director, released the documentary Sarajevo Safari, which investigated wealthy foreigners who had participated, including some from the United States and Russia.

Moreover, in 2007, former US Marine John Jordan testified to the ICTY that “tourist shooters” had come to Sarajevo.

How did the 1995 Srebrenica genocide happen?

By 1995, Srebrenica, a town in eastern Bosnia, had become a refuge for tens of thousands of Bosniaks fleeing surrounding villages.

which had been raided and ransacked by Bosnian Serb forces hunting them. The enclave was overcrowded and had become dependent on irregular UN aid convoys, and Bosnian Serb forces controlled the surrounding areas.

The UN declared Srebrenica a protected zone and stationed a small Dutch peacekeeping unit there, but the enclave remained under siege. Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, issued a directive in March 1995 to completely cut off Srebrenica.

In early July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces advanced on the enclave. On July 9, Karadzic’s forces were ordered to seize Srebrenica, and on July 11, Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb military leader known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, entered the town.

Over the following days, Bosnian Serb units separated men and boys from women and younger children.

More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were executed at sites in and around Srebrenica, and their bodies were dumped in mass graves. About 20,000 women, children, and elderly people were forcibly expelled.

The ICTY and the International Court of Justice later ruled that these killings constituted genocide.

How and when did the Bosnian War end?

Western governments had been reluctant to intervene decisively earlier in the war, but the genocide at Srebrenica forced a shift in approach.

NATO launched a sustained air campaign against Bosnian Serb forces in August and September 1995, marking a pivotal moment that paved the way for the Dayton Peace Agreement, which formally ended the war.

US-brokered talks brought the leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the then-Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to an airbase near Dayton, Ohio, in the US.

On November 21, 1995, they agreed to the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

better known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, which preserved Bosnia as a single state divided into two main entities – the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.

The agreement was formally signed in Paris on December 14.

What were the Dayton Accords?

The Dayton Peace Agreement was meant to do more than just end active fighting, and it reshaped the post-war political system.

Bosnia today has a highly decentralised structure of government, with two political entities as well as the third, self-governing Brcko District, shared between the other two, and layers of state-level institutions.

The Dayton Agreement dedicates an entire section to refugees and those displaced during the war. It says that “all refugees and displaced persons have the right freely to return to their homes of origin” and to have property restored or compensated.

But many experts describe the agreement as flawed in practice, as implementation has been partial at best.

While many people did return to their homes and hundreds of thousands of property claims were processed, significant numbers of Bosniaks were never able to return to their pre-war homes.

There were many reasons for this, including the presence of minefields, the fact that their housing had been destroyed, fear, economic hardship, and lingering, deep-rooted ethnic tensions.

Today, entire communities, particularly survivors of the Srebrenica genocide, remain in exile or have simply had to resettle elsewhere in countries such as the US and Australia.

Has anyone been held to account for the atrocities committed during the war?

In 1993, the UN created the ICTY to prosecute serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the Balkans. The tribunal lasted 24 years, from 1993 to 2017.

Witnesses and survivors testified about the atrocities over more than two decades, leading to the indictment of 161 individuals. Ninety of those were sentenced.

19 were acquitted, 20 had their indictments withdrawn, 17 died before conviction, 13 were referred to other courts, and two were retried.

Four types of crime were recorded at the tribunal – genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of laws/customs of war and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention.

Among the people tried by the tribunal were:

Radovan Karadzic –

The tribunal tried Radovan Karadzic, who was the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs. In 2016, he received a life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including his role in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo.

In 2021, he was transferred to the high-security prison, HMP Parkhurst, on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, UK.

Ratko Mladić – the Bosnian Serb military commander. In 2017, he was also sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide and other crimes. He is being held in the UN Detention Unit in The Hague, Netherlands.

Bosnian Croat leaders – several were convicted for crimes against Bosniaks during the Croat-Bosniak conflict.

Dozens of officials have also received long prison sentences for crimes linked to the Srebrenica genocide, though many survivors say justice remains far from being done.

In a light-filled workshop in eastern China, a robotic arm moved a partially assembled autonomous vehicle as workers calibrated its cameras, typical of the incremental automation being adopted even across smaller factories in the world’s manufacturing powerhouse.

China is already the world’s largest market for industrial robots, and the government is pouring billions of dollars into robotics and artificial intelligence to boost its presence in the sector.

The first essentially humanless factories are already in operation, even as widespread automation raises questions about job losses as well as the cost and difficulty of transition for smaller and medium-sized companies.

The answer for many is a hybrid approach, experts and factory owners told AFP. At the autonomous vehicle workshop, manager Liu Jingyao told AFP that humans are still a crucial part of even technologically advanced manufacturing.

“Many decisions require human judgement,” said Liu, whose company Neolix produces small van-like vehicles that transport parcels across Chinese cities.

“These decisions involve certain skill-based elements that still need to be handled by people.” At the Neolix factory, 300 kilometres (186 miles) north of Shanghai, newly constructed driverless vehicles zoomed around a testing track, simulating obstacles including puddles and bridges.

In a closed-off room, workers assembled vehicles’ “brains”, testing their cameras and computer chips. “Automation… primarily serve(s) to assist humans, reducing labour intensity rather than replacing them.”

China’s strategy involves concentrating on industrial applications.

Liu said. But Ni Jun, a mechanical engineering expert at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University, said China’s strategy of focusing on industrial applications for AI means full automation is already feasible in many sectors.

Among others, tech giant Xiaomi operates a “dark factory”—where the absence of people means no need for lights—with robotic arms and sensors able to make smartphones without humans.

Digital divide – Ni described a “digital divide” between larger companies with the funds to invest heavily in modernisation and smaller businesses struggling to keep up.

Full automation is a distant dream for Zhu Yefeng’s Far East Precision Printing Company, which is part of China’s vast network of small independent factories that employ up to a few dozen people each.

At the company just outside Shanghai, workers in small rooms fed sheets of instruction manuals into folding machines and operated equipment that printed labels for electronic devices.

The company used pen and paper to track its workflow until two years ago, with managers having to run around the factory to communicate order information.”

Things were, to put it bluntly, a complete mess,” Zhu told AFP. The company has since adopted software that allows employees to scan QR codes that send updates to a factory-wide tracker.

On a screen in his office, Zhu can see detailed charts breaking down each order’s completion level and individual employees’ productivity statistics. “This is a start,” Zhu told AFP.

“We will move toward more advanced technology like automation in order to receive even bigger orders from clients.” Financial constraints are a major barrier, though.

“As a small company, we can’t afford certain expenses,” said Zhu. His team is trying to develop its own robotic quality testing machine, but for now humans continue to check final products. – Employment pressures –

The potential unemployment caused by widespread automation will be a challenge, said Jacob Gunter from the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. “Companies will be quite happy to decrease their headcount… but the government will not like that and will be under a lot of pressure to navigate this.”

Gunter told AFP. Beijing’s push to develop industrial robots will “intersect with the need for maintaining high employment at a time when employment pressure is considerable,” he added. Going forward, manufacturers must strike a balance “between the technical feasibility, social responsibility, and business necessity”.

Jiaotong University’s Ni told AFP. Zhou Yuxiang, the CEO of Black Lake Technologies — the start-up that provided the software for Zhu’s factory —

told AFP he thought factories would “always be hybrids.”. “If you ask every owner of a factory, is a dark factory the goal? No, that’s just a superficial description,” Zhou said. “The goal for factories is to optimise production, deliver things that their end customers want, and also make money.”

Hulu/Disney+

‘It’s not their way of life.’

Disney/Natalie Cass

Becy/Bell Art Photography

‘Soft-swinging’ and race issues in the show

Paul Lim has become the oldest player ever to win a match at the PDC World Darts Championship.

The 71-year-old defeated Dutch-born Swede Jeffrey de Graaf 3-1 in the opening round as the Singapore veteran was roared on by the crowd at Alexander Palace in north London.

Lim beat the previous record held by Northern Irishman John MaGowan, who was 67 when he knocked out Englishman Chris Mason in round one in December 2008.

Lim, known as the ‘Singapore Slinger’, will face 2024 world champion Luke Humphries in the second round.

Humphries, 30, had progressed with a 3-1 win over fellow Englishman Ted Evetts in his opening match on Saturday.

Lim beat Humphries in the tournament five years ago, when the older player, then aged 66, won 3-2 in the first round.

In the darts rematch, Humphries, who has a plethora of major titles under his belt, will face off against Lim in a completely different role.

However, he knows the crowd may not be on his side in his latest battle.

Humphries is excited about the prospect of facing Lim.

On facing Lim, Humphries said, “It’s amazing. He’s a legend. The most challenging aspect for me is the deep affection he holds for me.

“I talk to Paul a lot and he always says to me, ‘You’re my favourite player.’ It’s hard to go and play him – the crowd are going to be against me, so it will be a tough game.”

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Lim said after his win: “First and foremost, I’m thankful to be here and I’m thankful to this crowd behind me. Just to make it here is an achievement.

“Even if you’re great, you can miss a shot, so take advantage.”

“I just took the advantage and I’m glad.

“Luke Humphries, I’ve been watching the last few years and he puts so much effort and time into what he’s doing.

“He’s a good guy, a gentleman and a great player. I just hope on a given day it can happen again. He’s good but can be beaten.”

Thailand’s sudden return to the use of force along its frontier with Cambodia is a blunt reminder of how volatile one of Southeast Asia’s most enduring territorial disputes remains.

The pace of the latest escalation is startling. Only weeks earlier, leaders from both countries stood before regional and international dignitaries at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, endorsing a ceasefire framework that was presented as a political breakthrough.

The symbolism was heavy: a truce blessed by regional leaders and witnessed by United States President Donald Trump meant to signal that Southeast Asia could manage its own tensions responsibly.

Yet that promise evaporated almost as soon as the delegations returned home. Bangkok’s air strikes on Cambodian positions in contested border pockets triggered immediate evacuations.

What this sequence reveals is painfully familiar.

Ceasefires in this dispute have rarely been more than pauses in a long cycle of distrust. Agreements are signed in conference halls, but the border itself has its own rhythm –

one shaped by longstanding grievances, competing national narratives and the difficulties of managing heavily armed forces operating in ambiguous terrain.

The ceasefire endorsed at the ASEAN summit was constructed as the foundation for a broader roadmap.

It committed both sides to cease hostilities, halt troop movements and gradually scale back the deployment of heavy weapons near contested areas. Crucially, it tasked ASEAN with deploying monitoring teams to observe compliance.

On paper, these were sensible steps. In reality, they were grafted onto political soil that was nowhere near ready to sustain them. Both governments were operating under heightened global scrutiny and were eager to signal calm to foreign investors, but the core issues –

Unsettled borders, unresolved historical claims and mutual suspicions embedded in their security establishments remained untouched.

The agreement thus functioned less as a resolution and more as a temporary show of goodwill to stave off international pressure. Its weaknesses were exposed almost immediately.

The summit’s momentum, rather than durable institutional mechanisms, heavily influenced the pact. High-profile witnesses can create ceremonial gravitas, but they cannot substitute for the painstaking work required to rebuild strategic trust.

Thailand and Cambodia entered the agreement with different interpretations of what compliance meant, particularly with regard to troop postures and patrol rights in disputed pockets.

More importantly, the proposed monitoring regime demanded close, real-time cooperation between two militaries that have long viewed one another through an adversarial lens.

Monitoring missions can succeed only when field commanders respect their access, accept their findings and operate under uniform rules of engagement. None of those conditions yet exists.

Domestic political considerations loom over all of this. In both Bangkok and Phnom Penh, leaders are acutely sensitive to accusations of weakness over territorial integrity.

Governments often act defensively, even preemptively, to avoid political backlash at home in an environment that easily inflames nationalist sentiment.

Thailand-Cambodia frontier reflects the legacies of colonialism.

To comprehend the recurring escalation of this conflict, it is crucial to place it within its broader context. The Thailand-Cambodia frontier reflects the legacies of colonial-era boundary-making.

The French, who ruled over Cambodia until 1954, were heavily involved in the delineation of the border, a process that left behind ambiguous lines and overlapping claims.

These ambiguities mattered little when both states were preoccupied with internal consolidation and Cold War upheavals.

But as their institutions matured, as national narratives took firmer hold and as economic development transformed the strategic value of particular zones, the border dispute hardened.

Several of the contested areas carry deep cultural and symbolic significance, including the Preah Vihear temple, built by the Khmer Empire, which both Thailand and Cambodia claim to be successors of.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the temple is within Cambodian territory.

When disputes erupted from 2008 to 2011, marked by exchanges of artillery fire, mass displacements, and duelling legal interpretations of the ICJ ruling, the political stakes crystallised.

The clashes did not just damage property and displace civilians; they embedded the border issue into the nationalist consciousness of both countries. Even periods of relative quiet in the years that followed rested on an uneasy equilibrium.

This year’s resurgence of violence follows that established pattern. Domestic politics in both capitals have entered a phase in which leaders feel compelled to demonstrate resolve.

Military modernisation programs, meanwhile, have provided both sides with more tools for coercion, even if neither desires a full-scale confrontation.

The proximity of troops in disputed pockets leaves little room for error: routine patrols can be misread as provocations, and ambiguous movements can quickly escalate into armed responses.

In such an environment, ceasefires, however well intentioned, have little chance of survival unless supported by mechanisms that address the deeper structural problems.

The fact that the ASEAN-brokered truce did not grapple directly with the border’s most contentious segments left it vulnerable.

Neither Thailand nor Cambodia is prepared to accept a binding demarcation that could be interpreted domestically as giving ground. Until there is clarity – legal, cartographic and political – the zone will remain a place where each side feels compelled to assert its presence.

External factors have further complicated calculations. Both countries operate in a geopolitical environment marked by larger power competition.

Neither Thailand nor Cambodia seeks to internationalise the dispute, but there are competing incentives to showcase autonomy, avoid external pressure, or signal strategic alignment.

These dynamics may not directly cause clashes, but they create a political environment in which leaders feel additional pressure to project strength.

What ASEAN must do

The implications of this escalation extend beyond the bilateral relationship. If air strikes, even calibrated ones, become normalised as tools of signalling,

Southeast Asia risks sliding into a period in which hardened positions become the default posture in territorial disputes. Civilian displacements could widen.

Confidence-building measures – already fragile – could evaporate outright. And the political space of diplomacy, which relies on leaders having room to manoeuvre away from maximalist rhetoric, could shrink dramatically.

ASEAN now faces a test of relevance. Symbolic diplomacy, declarations of concern and offers of “good offices” will not suffice. If an organisation wishes to demonstrate that it can manage conflicts within its ranks, it must undertake three essential steps.

First, it must insist that its monitoring missions are fully deployed and granted operational autonomy.

Observers need unrestricted access to flashpoints, and their assessments must be publicly reported to reduce the temptation for either side to distort facts. Transparent monitoring will not eliminate the dispute, but it can reduce opportunities for opportunistic escalation.

Second, ASEAN should establish a standing trilateral crisis group composed of Thailand, Cambodia and the ASEAN chair.

This group should be mandated to intervene diplomatically within hours of any reported incident. Timely engagement could prevent misunderstandings from hardening into military responses.

Third, ASEAN must begin laying the groundwork for a longer-term negotiation on border demarcation.

This would be politically sensitive and may not yield quick breakthroughs, but a structured process supported by neutral cartographers, legal experts and historical researchers could create space for gradual movement. A slow dialogue is better than no dialogue.

The United Nations could complement, though not supplant, ASEAN’s leadership. The UN’s technical expertise in boundary disputes, its experience managing verification processes, and its capacity to support humanitarian preparedness could reinforce regional efforts.

Crucially, UN involvement could depoliticise highly technical issues that often become entangled with nationalist rhetoric.

Yet none of these institutional tools will matter unless political leaders in Bangkok and Phnom Penh are prepared to confront the past honestly and consider compromises that may be unpopular.

Sustainable peace requires more than a respite from violence; it demands constituencies willing to accept that historical grievances must be resolved through negotiation rather than through force or symbolic posturing.

The collapse of the recent ceasefire should not be viewed merely as another unfortunate episode but as a sign that Southeast Asia’s security architecture remains incomplete.

The region has made impressive progress in building economic integration and diplomatic habits, but when it comes to managing high-stakes territorial disputes, structural weaknesses persist. Without meaningful investment in transparency,

shared rules and credible enforcement mechanisms, even the most celebrated agreements will remain vulnerable to political winds.

Thailand and Cambodia find themselves at a crucial juncture. They can either continue down a path where periodic escalations are normalised, or they can choose to engage in a process, even a long and imperfect one, that leads towards a final settlement.

Civilians, border communities, and regional stability would bear the costs of the former. The benefits of the latter would extend far beyond their shared frontier.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.