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DT<br />

8<br />

World<br />

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER <strong>25</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />

SOUTH ASIA<br />

Afghanistan vows to reduce<br />

violence against women<br />

Afghan ministries Thursday signed<br />

an agreement to eliminate violence<br />

against women, a largely symbolic<br />

effort in a country that still consider<br />

one of the worst in the world<br />

to be female. The Afghan attorney<br />

general’s office recorded more than<br />

3,700 cases of violence against<br />

women in the first eight months of<br />

<strong>2016</strong>, with 5,000 cases recorded in<br />

the whole of 2015. AFP<br />

INDIA<br />

Protests over land rights<br />

flare in Jharkhand<br />

Protests over land rights flared for<br />

a second day in the eastern Indian<br />

state of Jharkhand, as activists<br />

and indigenous people took to the<br />

streets after the state assembly<br />

approved amendments to colonial-era<br />

land laws despite strong<br />

opposition. The state assembly on<br />

Wednesday approved changes to<br />

two laws that will allow the state to<br />

buy protected tribal land. REUTERS<br />

CHINA<br />

China power plant<br />

collapse kills 67<br />

At least 67 people were killed<br />

when part of a power station under<br />

construction in China collapsed<br />

Thursday, the latest industrial<br />

accident in a country with a dismal<br />

safety record. A cooling tower platform<br />

plunged to the ground in the<br />

early hours, trapping an unknown<br />

number of people beneath it. AFP<br />

ASIA PACIFIC<br />

Indonesians protest over<br />

Rohingya cause<br />

Hundreds of Indonesians, angered<br />

over the persecution of Rohingya<br />

Muslims in Myanmar, protested<br />

Thursday outside the Myanmar<br />

Embassy in the Indonesian capital.<br />

Jakarta police spokesman Awi<br />

Setiyono said at least 200 people<br />

joined the demonstration. They<br />

marched in three groups to the<br />

embassy, which was guarded by<br />

dozens of police, and staged a<br />

noisy but peaceful protest. AP<br />

MIDDLE EAST<br />

Kurds, Shias to coordinate<br />

after sealing off Mosul<br />

Iraqi Kurdish and Shia forces<br />

agreed to coordinate movements<br />

after cutting off Mosul from the<br />

rest of the territory held by IS in<br />

western Iraq and Syria, US and<br />

Iraqi officials said on Thursday.<br />

The agreement was reached at<br />

meeting on Wednesday between<br />

commanders of Kurdish Peshmerga<br />

forces and Hadi al-Amiri, the<br />

leader of the Iranian-backed Badr<br />

Organisation. REUTERS<br />

West voices concern at handling of<br />

Rohingya crisis<br />

• Reuters, Yangon/UN<br />

Western nations are increasingly<br />

concerned at how Aung San Suu<br />

Kyi’s government is dealing with<br />

violence in Myanmar’s divided<br />

northwest, with the US envoy to the<br />

United Nations privately warning<br />

fellow diplomats the country could<br />

not handle the crisis on its own.<br />

Violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine<br />

State has sent hundreds of Rohingya<br />

Muslims fleeing across the border<br />

to Bangladesh amid allegations<br />

of abuses by security forces, posing<br />

the biggest test yet for Suu Kyi’s<br />

eight-month-old administration.<br />

Samantha Power, Washington’s<br />

ambassador to the UN, outlined<br />

the level of concern at a closed<br />

meeting of the United Nations Security<br />

Council, held at the United<br />

States’ request at the body’s headquarters<br />

in New York last Thursday,<br />

diplomats said.<br />

Suu Kyi responded the next day<br />

by telling a gathering of diplomats<br />

in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw,<br />

that her country was being treated<br />

unfairly, sources said.<br />

Abuse allegations<br />

Soldiers have poured into the area<br />

along Myanmar’s frontier with<br />

Bangladesh, responding to coordinated<br />

attacks on three border<br />

posts on October 9 that killed nine<br />

police officers. Myanmar’s military<br />

and the government have rejected<br />

Trump names staunch critic as envoy to UN<br />

• Reuters, Florida/Washington,<br />

DC<br />

Donald Trump on Wednesday<br />

named South Carolina Governor<br />

Nikki Haley, a former critic with<br />

little foreign policy experience,<br />

as the next US ambassador to the<br />

United Nations at a time of uncertainty<br />

over America’s international<br />

role under his presidency.<br />

Haley, one of two women chosen<br />

so far for a job in Trump’s<br />

Cabinet, is “a proven dealmaker,<br />

and we look to be making plenty<br />

of deals. She will be a great leader<br />

representing us on the world<br />

stage,” the Republican president-elect<br />

said in a statement.<br />

Trump on Wednesday also<br />

picked wealthy Republican donor<br />

and school choice advocate Betsy<br />

DeVos to lead the Education Department.<br />

Haley, the 44-year-old daughter<br />

of Indian immigrants, represents<br />

what some Republicans hope<br />

allegations by residents and rights<br />

groups that soldiers have raped<br />

Rohingya women, burnt houses<br />

and killed civilians during the military<br />

operation in Rakhine.<br />

Presidential spokesman Zaw<br />

Htay said Myanmar was “releasing<br />

correct news immediately” to prevent<br />

the spread of misinformation.<br />

At the New York meeting last<br />

week, Power renewed Washington’s<br />

call for the opening of an<br />

office of the OHCHR, the UN’s human<br />

rights body, in Myanmar.<br />

She also warned that years of disenfranchisement<br />

might have triggered<br />

radicalisation of some elements<br />

of the Rohingya community, describing<br />

the Security Council meeting as a<br />

“classic prevention moment”.<br />

State Department spokeswoman<br />

Nicole Thompson declined to<br />

comment on what was said at the<br />

closed-door Nov. 17 meeting.<br />

“We remain concerned by reports<br />

of ongoing violence and displacement<br />

in northern Rakhine<br />

State,” Thompson said.<br />

“We continue to urge the government<br />

to conduct a credible, independent<br />

investigation into the<br />

events in Rakhine State, and renew<br />

our request for open media access.”<br />

Britain also expressed its concerns<br />

at the meeting, diplomats<br />

said, as did Malaysia, which voiced<br />

worries the violence could prompt<br />

a renewed regional migration crisis.<br />

Underscoring the diplomatic<br />

Governor of the US State of South<br />

Carolina Nikki Haley at the Golden<br />

Temple in Amritsar, India<br />

AFP<br />

MYANMAR’S ROHINGYA<br />

Stateless Muslim ethnic group<br />

BANGLADESH<br />

Around 300,000<br />

Rohingya living in<br />

coastal areas<br />

Source : UNHCR<br />

BAY OF<br />

BENGAL<br />

Over 120,000 people<br />

have fled Rakhine since<br />

religious violence in 2012,<br />

according to UNHCR<br />

More than 30,000<br />

people displaced,<br />

at least 70 killed under<br />

military lockdown in<br />

the north of Rakhine<br />

since October<br />

tensions, Muslim-majority Malaysia<br />

said on Wednesday it was considering<br />

pulling out of a regional<br />

soccer tournament co-hosted by<br />

Myanmar in protest over its handling<br />

of the crisis.<br />

Egypt’s representative said it too<br />

was concerned by reports of radicalisation<br />

500 km among the Rohingya.<br />

could be the new face of their party:<br />

a younger, more diverse generation<br />

of leaders.<br />

Haley took Trump strongly<br />

to task during the presidential<br />

campaign over his harsh rhetoric<br />

about illegal immigration and for<br />

not speaking forcefully enough<br />

against white supremacists.<br />

America’s global role<br />

The choice of Haley may be aimed<br />

at countering criticism of Trump’s<br />

divisive comments about immigrants<br />

and minorities, as well as<br />

accusations of sexism during his<br />

election campaign.<br />

Haley led a successful effort last<br />

year to remove the Confederate<br />

battle flag from the grounds of the<br />

South Carolina state capitol after<br />

the killing of nine black churchgoers<br />

in Charleston. The flag was<br />

carried by pro-slavery Confederate<br />

forces during the Civil War and is<br />

viewed by many as a racist emblem.<br />

Haley said she had accepted<br />

MYANMAR<br />

Rakhine<br />

State<br />

Muslim Rohingya at a<br />

displacement<br />

camp, September 7<br />

Home to most of the<br />

1 million Rohingya<br />

Buddhist-majority<br />

Myanmar see the<br />

Rohingya as<br />

illegal Bangladeshi<br />

immigrants<br />

The Rohingya are<br />

denied citizenship<br />

and smothered<br />

by restrictions on<br />

movement and work<br />

The UN High Commissioner for<br />

Refugees has pressed the Burmese<br />

government to provide immediate<br />

humanitarian access to provide<br />

aid to the Rohingya in accordance<br />

with international law and has<br />

asked Bangladesh to keep its border<br />

open to any civilians fleeing<br />

the violence. •<br />

Trump’s offer and would remain<br />

governor pending her confirmation<br />

to the Cabinet-level post by<br />

the US Senate.<br />

Sharp words for Trump<br />

Haley would succeed Obama’s UN<br />

envoy, Samantha Power, a foreign<br />

policy expert before she took the<br />

job. In contrast, Haley, a state lawmaker<br />

before becoming governor,<br />

has little experience in international<br />

relations.<br />

She was a robust critic of Trump<br />

during the early stages of the Republican<br />

presidential nominating<br />

race, including condemning him<br />

for not disavowing the support of<br />

the Ku Klux Klan and one of the<br />

white supremacist group’s former<br />

leaders, David Duke.<br />

In a rebuttal to Obama’s State<br />

of the Union address in January,<br />

Haley called for tolerance on immigration<br />

and civility in politics,<br />

in what some saw as a rebuke of<br />

Trump. •

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