Reshuffle puts 'right person in right place': government

30 THE MYANMAR TIMES JULY 29 - AUGUST 4, 2013
World WORLD
UN chief demands Morsi’s
release ahead of rallies
EDITOR: Douglas Long | dlong125@gmail.com
SAMER AL-ATRUSH
UN Chief Ban Ki-moon called
for the release of Egypt’s deposed
president Mohamed
Morsi as his supporters and
the military who toppled him
sought to defuse soaring tensions
ahead of rival rallies
Friday.
Ban demanded that Morsi
and his high-level backers “be
released or have their cases reviewed
transparently without
delay,” said deputy UN spokesman
Eduardo del Buey.
Morsi and several Muslim
Brotherhood leaders have been
detained since the military
drove him from power on July
3 in response to massive protests
calling for his ouster.
Taking a step back after
outraging Islamists and sparking
concern in Washington, the
military insisted on Thursday
that it was not targeting Morsi’s
backers in calling for a mass
rally to counter “terrorism and
violence.”
Police said they were planning
large-scale reinforcements
to secure Friday’s rallies, amid
fears they could turn into a
massive showdown between Islamists
demanding Morsi’s reinstatement
and an array of opponents,
including the military.
Egypt’s military has set a 48-
hour deadline, which expires
late on Friday, after which it
will decisively deal with “violence
and terrorism,” according
to a statement posted on a
military-linked Facebook account.
Military chief Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi had issued the deadline,
it said, at the end of which,
“the strategy for dealing with
violence and terrorism will
change...appropriately to deal
guarantee security and stability.”
A senior army official told
AFP the statement did not
reflect the military’s point of
view, although it appeared on a
“page with links to the armed
forces”.
“The 48-hour ultimatum is a
political invitation,” the officer
said. “It doesn’t mean after 48
hours we are going to crack
down.”
Hisham Qandil, prime minister
before Morsi was pushed
aside by the army on July 3,
on Thursday proposed a threestage
roadmap that would start
with confidence-building steps.
In a video recording posted
on YouTube, the former premier
said both sides should
refrain from marches and hold
rallies only in fixed locations.
Qandil was among the representatives
of Morsi’s camp in
a meeting with EU diplomat
Catherine Ashton last week.
He also called for the release
of prisoners detained in the
days leading up to Morsi’s ouster
by the military, and those detained
since.
A delegation should be allowed
to visit Morsi, detained
by the army since his overthrow,
to check on his health,
‘[The Military’s] threat will not
stop millions from continuously
protesting.’
Essam al-Erian
Senior Muslim Brotherhood Leader
he added.
Earlier Thursday, the fugitive
leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie,
urged Egyptians to peacefully
make a “stand for freedom
and legitimacy, and against the
bloody coup”.
The United States on
Wednesday expressed its concern
at Sisi’s call. After his comments,
Washington, which has
close ties with Egypt’s military,
announced it would suspend a
delivery of F-16 warplanes.
In its statement Thursday,
the military said Sisi’s “call was
not a threat to any political
group in particular”.
Army-installed interim president
Adly Mansour’s spokesman,
who had supported Sisi’s
call, on Thursday called for
peaceful rallies and cautioned
against vigilantism.
The Brotherhood and allied
Islamist groups had denounced
Sisi’s call as “an announcement
of civil war”.
Senior Brotherhood leader
Essam al-Erian said Morsi
loyalists would not be intimidated
by the army chief’s call
for mass rallies. “Your threat
will not prevent millions from
continuously protesting,” Erian
wrote on Facebook.
London-based rights group
Amnesty International also
criticised the decision in a
statement Thursday.
“Given the security forces’
routine use of excessive force,
such a move is likely to lead
to yet more unlawful killings,”
said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui,
Amnesty’s deputy director of its
Middle East and North Africa
programme.
Almost 200 people have died
in political unrest since the end
of June, according to an AFP
tally, many of them in clashes
between Morsi’s supporters and
opponents and in militants’ attacks
in the Sinai. – AFP
Indonesia prison system
rocked by drug, sex scandal
INDONESIAN authorities suspended
a prison warden Thursday
after a model claimed she
routinely met her boyfriend,
who is on death row, in a private
room at the jail to share
sex and drugs.
In the latest scandal to hit
the country’s notoriously corrupt
prison system, Vanny
Rossyane, 22, said she had
visited drugs kingpin Freddy
Budiman three times a week at
the Cipinang penitentiary complex
in the capital, Jakarta.
“I would go at 11 in the
morning and stay until around
5 pm. We would ML and take
crystal meth,” she told local
media, using letters to indicate
“make love”.
“There were two rooms, we
kept changing. One of them
was the warden’s room,” she
said, referring to Thurman
Hutapea, warden of the complex’s
jail for prisoners with
drugs convictions.
Rossyane’s account has led
to a flurry of salacious media
reports and comments on Twitter,
some denigrating the couple
and others calling for the
warden to be sacked.
A spokesman for the correctional
facilities department
at the justice ministry said the
prison warden was being questioned.
“He was suspended because
we have to question him based
on reports received Wednesday.
We will wait for the results,” he
told AFP.
Budiman, 37, was sentenced
to death on July 15 by a court
in Jakarta for attempting to organise
the smuggling of 1.4 million
ecstasy pills from China.
Budiman was already in
prison for another narcotics offence
when he tried to organise
the drugs run.
The Cipinang penitentiary,
where high-profile corruption
convicts and wealthy drug dealers
are locked up, has been long
criticised for giving special favours
to those who can pay.
The jail has been caught
giving some prisoners large private
rooms and allowing them
to bring in maids, furniture, air
conditioners and televisions.
The case emerged two
weeks after a major jailbreak
from a prison which had more
than two times its capacity of
inmates. Convicted terrorists
were among those who escaped.
The jailbreak on the island
of Sumatra prompted calls for
action on the country’s overstretched
prison system. – AFP
Pope Francis arrives on the popemobile at Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Copacabana beachfront for his welco
1.5 million Brazil
to see ‘pope of the
A HUGE crowd of 1.5 million
Catholics greeted Pope Francis
on Brazil’s Copacabana beach
on Thursday after the pontiff
toured a notorious Rio slum to
defend the cause of the poor.
Latin America’s first pope
was confronted with starkly
contrasting images of life in
the tropical metropolis on the
fourth day of his visit to Brazil,
from its ritzy seafront to its
impoverished hillside favelas.
A teeming swathe of young
Catholics joined dancers swaying
to samba beats on Copacabana
for World Youth Day,
braving cold rain and wind to
cheer the Argentine-born pope
who has championed a “poor
Church for the poor”.
“I always heard that the
Cariocas [Rio residents] didn’t
like cold and rain. Your faith is
stronger than cold and rain,”
the pope said as he was treated
to religious choirs, samba
songs and dance routines.
Pope Francis repeated a
theme of his weeklong visit,
urging young Catholics to
shun the trappings of materialism
and put Jesus Christ at
the center of their lives.
“Possessions, money and
power can give a momentary
thrill, the illusion of being
happy, but they end up possessing
us and making us always
want to have more, never
satisfied,” he said.
Maria Aparecido, 53, travelled
from Sao Paulo with her
eight-year-old daughter to see
the pope, who had arrived in
Copacabana by helicopter before
being paraded along the
coastline in a jeep with open
sides.
“I would have liked to get
closer to him, to touch him,”
Aparecido said as she watched
the pope on a giant screen on
Copacabana. “He is the pope
of hope. I hope he will change
the Church. We want a simpler
Church of the poor.”
Stefania Burgos, a 25-yearold
from Ecuador, said “seeing
the pope and brothers and
sisters from the world over
gives me great joy. I see big
changes with this pope. He
will revolutionize the Catholic
Church.”
Vatican officials have made
no secret of the fact that the
pope’s first trip abroad since
his election aims to re-energise
his flock. While Brazil remains
the world’s biggest Catholic
country, its flock has shrunk
while Evangelical churches
grow.
The massive beach ceremony
followed his visit to
one of the city’s notoriously
violent slums, where he waded
into Brazil’s tense political
and social debate over corruption
and social injustice that
erupted in massive protests
last month.
“Dear young friends, you
have a particular sensitivity
towards injustice, but you are
often disappointed by facts
that speak of corruption on
the part of people who put
their own interests before the
common good,” he said.
“To you and to all, I repeat:
never yield to discouragement,
do not lose trust, do not allow
your hope to be extinguished,”
he told thousands gathered
‘I want the
Chursh, parish
colleges, the
institutions to go
into the streets.’
Pope Francis
Leader of the Holy See