Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections

Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections
Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said that a ‘free and fair elections’ would be held upon the completion of the state of emergency. (AP)
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Updated 27 March 2023

Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections

Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections
  • Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government
  • Min Aung Hlaing: Military will take ‘decisive action’ against opponents and ethnic rebels supporting them

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar: Flanked by tanks and missile launchers, Myanmar’s junta chief Monday vowed no letup in a crackdown on opponents and insisted the military would hold elections — weeks after admitting it did not control enough territory to allow a vote.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government over two years ago after making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.
The putsch sparked renewed fighting with ethnic rebels and birthed dozens of anti-junta “People’s Defense Forces” (PDFs), with swathes of the country now ravaged by fighting and the economy in tatters.
The military will take “decisive action” against its opponents and ethnic rebels supporting them, Min Aung Hlaing told an audience of around 8,000 service members attending the annual Armed Forces Day parade in the military-built capital Naypyidaw.
“The terror acts of NUG and its lackey so-called PDFs need to be tackled for good and all,” he said, referring to the “National Unity Government,” a body dominated by ousted lawmakers working to reverse the coup.
The junta would then hold “free and fair elections” upon the completion of the state of emergency, he said.
Last month, the military announced an extension of a two-year state of emergency and postponement of elections it had promised to hold by August, as it did not control enough of the country for a vote to take place.
“Serenity and stability are vital” before any election could go ahead, Min Aung Hlaing told the parade.
Planes flew overhead spewing smoke in the yellow, red and green of the national flag and a flight of five Russian-made Sukoi Su-30 jets roared past.
Women lined the streets leading to the parade ground to garland marching soldiers with flowers, images on state media showed.
Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of local resistance to the Japanese occupation during World War II, and usually features a military parade attended by foreign officers and diplomats.
Two years after the coup, the situation in Myanmar is a “festering catastrophe,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said earlier this month, adding that the military was operating with “complete impunity.”
More than 3,100 people have been killed in the military’s crackdown on dissent since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.
More than a million people have been displaced by fighting, according to the UN.
In December, the junta wrapped up a series of closed-court trials of Suu Kyi, jailing her for a total of 33 years in a process rights groups have condemned as a sham.


South Korea, Australia agree to step up defense cooperation

South Korea, Australia agree to step up defense cooperation
Updated 14 sec ago

South Korea, Australia agree to step up defense cooperation

South Korea, Australia agree to step up defense cooperation
  • The two countries agreed to hold working-level meetings as part of steps to revise a memorandum of understanding signed in 2011 aimed at enhancing defense industry cooperation
SEOUL: South Korea and Australia’s defense chiefs agreed on Tuesday to step up defense cooperation, South Korea’s defense ministry said.
Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup met his Australian counterpart Richard Marles on the sidelines of the inaugural South Korea-Pacific Islands Summit in Seoul.
Lee expressed the South Korean military’s willingness to join the Indo-Pacific Endeavour, an Australian-led multinational military drill, as well as Operation Render Safe, activities by the Australian Defense Force to remove underwater mines in the Pacific.
The two countries agreed to hold working-level meetings as part of steps to revise a memorandum of understanding signed in 2011 aimed at enhancing defense industry cooperation.
Marles also met with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol and discussed joint efforts to expand cooperation with the Pacific Islands countries, a presidential spokesperson said.

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality
Updated 44 min 51 sec ago

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality
  • They are among 90,000 people who have escaped to Chad since fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April
  • Tensions have risen over water use, which is traditionally sourced from communal wells

KOUFROUN: There used to be one family in Fanna Hamit’s compound, now there are 11 families struggling to get by selling roasted crickets after she took in relatives fleeing the conflict in Sudan.
They are among 90,000 people who have escaped to Chad since fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April — a major extra burden on one of the world’s poorest countries.
Even before this emergency, Chad was hosting 600,000 refugees from its war-torn neighbors and grappling with a fourth consecutive year of acute food shortages. Overall, around 2.3 million people are in urgent need of food aid, the World Food Programme warned earlier in May.
“The extraordinary hospitality of the Chadian government and its people has been demonstrated yet again ... but the scale of this crisis requires more funding to save lives,” UN aid agency OCHA said in a call for increased international support.
Hamit, a 58-year-old widow with six children of her own, has had to make careful economies to provide for those sheltering in her compound, most of whom arrived in this border village of Koufron with nothing.
Squeezed into the open-air compound, the women cook together over small braziers in the sand as children play around them.
“They share everything with us: their food, their toilet, their clothes and all the rest,” said 78-year-old Kaltouma Yaya Abderahmane, who pitched up at Hamit’s door in the middle of the night in late April.
The sudden arrival of large numbers of people has also distorted the market for goods and squeezed water supplies in Chad’s remote and arid borderlands.
“Let’s not even talk about sugar ... it’s doubled in price,” Hamit said, also lamenting the higher cost of grains and peanuts.
Tensions have risen over water use, which is traditionally sourced from communal wells. Some refugees at the Goungour refugee camp, south of Koufroun, told Reuters they had been barred by locals from drawing water in a nearby village and had to dig their own wells in dry riverbeds.
Hamit said she tried to help “even the refugees who have set up shelters nearby .... they come to us for water”.

“The situation is tough for everyone.”


At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir
The overloaded bus was on way to Katra from Punjab state when it fell off the highway bridge. (AP)
Updated 57 min 14 sec ago

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir
  • The overloaded bus was on way to Katra from Punjab state when it fell off the highway bridge and into the gorge near Jammu city

SRINAGAR: A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims to a shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir skid off a highway bridge into a Himalayan gorge Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 55, police said.
The bus was on way to Katra town from the northern state of Punjab’s Amritsar city when it fell into the gorge near Jammu city, police said.
Local police officer Chandan Kohli told reporters that the bus was overloaded. He said the dead were from India’s eastern Bihar state.
Residents and authorities rushed to the accident spot and launched a rescue operation. The injured have been hospitalized.
The shrine of Vaishno Devi in Katra is highly revered by Hindus and hundreds of thousands visit it every year.
India has some of the highest road death rates in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.


Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal

Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal
Somalia’s government announced an agreement on Sunday that a one-person one-vote system would be introduced in June 2024. (AFP)
Updated 30 May 2023

Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal

Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal
  • Somalia’s government announced an agreement on Sunday that a one-person one-vote system would be introduced in June 2024
  • Eight prominent politicians, among them former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and four former prime ministers, issued a statement Monday objecting to the agreement

MOGADISHU: A group of leading Somali politicians denounced Monday a move to overhaul the country’s electoral system and introduce universal suffrage, charging that there was a lack of broad consultation and that some of the proposals were unconstitutional.
Somalia’s central government and four federal member states announced an agreement on Sunday that a one-person one-vote system would be introduced with local elections set for June 2024.
It followed a pledge by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in March to end the complex clan-based indirect voting system in place for more than half a century in the troubled Horn of Africa nation.
Sunday’s agreement reached at a meeting of the National Consultative Forum also calls for a single presidential ticket in which voters would choose a president and vice president, effectively quashing the post of prime minister.
The proposals still have to be approved by parliament.
But about eight prominent politicians, among them former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and four former prime ministers, issued a statement Monday objecting to the agreement.
“We applaud efforts to get the country to a level of one-person one-vote and a multi-party system... that enforces democratic governance,” they said.
However, they charged that making a decision of such national interest “without the full representation of all federal member states, will put the unity of the people in jeopardy”, referring to the absence of Puntland’s president Said Abdullahi Deni at Sunday’s meeting.
“Making changes in the power-sharing mechanism and the governance system of the country without in-depth consultation, without consulting the public, will lead to a breakdown, a lack of confidence and the disintegration of society.”
The signatories voiced their opposition to a new electoral calendar calling for parliamentary and presidential votes in the federal states on November 30 next year, beyond the current expiry dates of some mandates.
They also objected to plans to limit to two the number of political parties able to contest elections, saying it meant that “power will be confined to a small group of people”.
Somalia is struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and chaos while battling a bloody insurgency by Al-Shabab jihadists and natural disasters including a punishing drought that has left millions facing hunger.
The country has not had one-person, one-vote elections nationwide since 1969, when the dictator Siad Barre seized power.
However, in a landmark move on Thursday, Puntland held direct elections for local councils, with Somalia’s international partners voicing hope they would inspire increased democracy across the nation.


Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan

Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan
Updated 30 May 2023

Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan

Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan
  • With waves crashing on the shoreline, residents of the Taiwanese fishing town of Yilan secure boats and homes against the stormy conditions

YILAN, Taiwan: Typhoon Mawar lashed Taiwan’s eastern coast with wind, rain and large waves Tuesday but largely skirted the island after giving a glancing blow to the northern Philippines. The storm was moving slowly toward southern Japan.
With waves crashing on the shoreline, residents of the Taiwanese fishing town of Yilan secured boats and homes against the stormy conditions.
“I will not worry. The typhoon won’t make landfall now. The typhoon will move northward from the sea in the east of Taiwan. Its strength has also weakened. And there is no wind and waves in the fishing port at present. I don’t think it will affect us,” said Wang Jian-chi, a fishing boat owner.
The coast guard said precautions were being taken, just in case.
“We have issued a high surf warning. The wind and wave are very strong. We hope that beachgoers won’t come near the beach and embankment at this moment. We will also send coast guard personnel to patrol the port to warn beachgoers,” said coast guard officer Wang Hsing-chieh as he patrolled the port with his team.
Although the slow-moving typhoon has lost some of its ferocity since smashing into Guam last week, forecasters in the Philippines said Mawar remained dangerous with maximum sustained winds of 155kph and gusts of up to 190kph.
People in the Batanes province of the Philippines prepared for bad conditions, but were largely spared.
“I’m on the roof, but I’m not being blown away by the wind,” Juliet Cataluna, a Batanes provincial official in the coastal town of Ivana, told The Associated Press by cellphone. “I wish we’ll really be spared from damages — our livelihood, our agricultural produce and our houses.”
After seeing earlier forecasts that Mawar would be stronger, townspeople in Ivana placed sandbags on their tin roofs and covered glass windows with wooden boards. Cataluna added that she wrapped her avocados with sack cloth so they would not be blown off trees.
Town leaders used motorcycles to deliver constant typhoon updates, she said, and fortunately only light rains and occasional wind gusts have hit Ivana.
The typhoon was offshore about 350 kilometers east of the Batanes capital, Basco, and is projected to shift northeast by Wednesday toward southern Japan. Strong winds were still forecast for Taiwan, and authorities in the Philippines warned against complacency, saying the risks from dangerous tidal surges, flash floods, landslides and typhoon-enhanced monsoon rains remain until Mawar has safely blown away.
More than 3,400 villagers remained in emergency shelters in northern provinces, flights to and from Batanes remained suspended, and classes have not resumed in more than 250 cities and towns in the north, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
Winds lashed nearby Cagayan province Monday, causing an unoccupied wharf warehouse to collapse and prompting more villagers to move to evacuation centers.
Mawar tore through Guam last week as the strongest typhoon to hit the US Pacific territory in over two decades, flipping cars, tearing off roofs and knocking down power.