Thousands of non-Muslims evacuated as violence flares in northwest Myanmar

Agencies
August 27, 2017

Yangon/Cox's Bazar, Aug 27: Myanmar's government said it has evacuated at least 4,000 non-Muslim villagers amid ongoing clashes in northwestern Rakhine state, as thousands more Rohingya Muslims sought to flee across the border to Bangladesh on Sunday.

The death toll from the violence that erupted on Friday with coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents has climbed to 98, including some 80 insurgents and 12 members of the security forces, the government said.

Fighting involving the military and hundreds of Rohingya across northwestern Rakhine continued on Saturday with the fiercest clashes taking place near the major town of Maungdaw, according to residents and the government.

Bracing for more violence, thousands of Rohingya - mostly women and children - were trying to forge the Naf river separating Myanmar and Bangladesh and the land border. Reuters reporters at the border could hear gunfire from the Myanmar side on Sunday.

Around 2,000 people have been able to cross into Bangladesh since Friday, according to estimates by Rohingya refugees living in the makeshift camps on the Bangladeshi side of the border.

The violence marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since last October, when a similar but much smaller Rohingya attack prompted a brutal military operation beset by allegations of serious human rights abuses.

While the chaos and lack of access made detailed assessments difficult, experts said the latest attacks were so widespread they appeared to be more akin to a movement or an uprising, rather than a regular insurgent offensive.

One army source said the military was also struggling to differentiate.

"All the villagers become insurgents, what they're doing is like a revolution," said the source in Rakhine. "They don't care if they die or not. We can't tell who of them are insurgents."

CHALLENGE FOR SUU KYI

The treatment of approximately 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar has emerged as the biggest challenge for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi on Friday condemned the raids in which insurgents wielding guns, sticks and homemade bombs assaulted 30 police stations and an army base.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been accused by some Western critics of not speaking out for the long-persecuted Muslim minority.

Win Myat Aye, Myanmar's minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, told Reuters late on Saturday that 4,000 "ethnic villagers" who had fled their villages had been evacuated, referring to non-Muslim residents of the area.

The ministry is arranging facilities for them in places including Buddhist monasteries, government offices and local police stations in major cities.

"We are providing food to the people cooperating with the state government and local authorities," said Win Myat Aye. He was unable to describe the government's plans to help Rohingya civilians.

Rakhine residents in ethnically mixed or non-Muslim towns have readied knives and sticks to defend themselves. Many were stranded in their villages located in Muslim-majority areas as clashes continued and some roads had been mined, residents said.

People from Maungdaw and another town, Buthidaung, said on Sunday they worried food supply routes had been temporarily cut off.

"Buthidaung will face shortages of food, because no ships have arrived since the fighting started. It is also difficult to send food to the villagers stuck in other areas," Arakan National Party regional lawmaker, Tun Aung Thein, told Reuters by telephone from the town.

"BREAKING POINT"

The Myanmar army operation following attacks last year was heavily criticised internationally amid reports of civilian killings, rape and arson that a United Nations investigation said probably constituted crimes against humanity. Suu Kyi is blocking the U.N.-mandated probe into the allegations.

The Rohingya have for years endured apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar - they are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their movements. Many Myanmar Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Observers worry that the latest attacks, across a wider area than October's violence and with many more people involved, represent a "breaking point" many Rohingya reached with the help of a charismatic insurgent leader, Ata Ullah.

Ata Ullah leads the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) which instigated the October attacks and claimed responsibility for the latest offensive.

Myanmar declared ARSA, previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin, a terrorist organisation in the wake of the attacks.

Across the border, Bangladesh's foreign ministry said it was concerned thousands of "unarmed Myanmar nationals" were planning to enter the country.

Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar to Bangladesh since the early 1990s and there are now around 400,000 in the country, where they are a source of tension between the two nations who both regard them as the other country's citizens.

The Myanmar army operation following attacks last year was heavily criticised internationally amid reports of civilian killings, rape and arson that a United Nations investigation said probably constituted crimes against humanity. Suu Kyi is blocking the U.N.-mandated probe into the allegations.

The Rohingya have for years endured apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar - they are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their movements. Many Myanmar Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Observers worry that the latest attacks, across a wider area than October's violence and with many more people involved, represent a "breaking point" many Rohingya reached with the help of a charismatic insurgent leader, Ata Ullah.

Ata Ullah leads the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) which instigated the October attacks and claimed responsibility for the latest offensive.

Myanmar declared ARSA, previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin, a terrorist organisation in the wake of the attacks.

Across the border, Bangladesh's foreign ministry said it was concerned thousands of "unarmed Myanmar nationals" were planning to enter the country.

Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar to Bangladesh since the early 1990s and there are now around 400,000 in the country, where they are a source of tension between the two nations who both regard them as the other country's citizens.

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mark sebastin
 - 
Sunday, 27 Aug 2017

line up everyone and shoot on their head . they are jihadists ....

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Agencies
March 26,2020

Washington, Mar 26: Indian-American hoteliers have come forward to rescue the stranded Indian students in the US following implementation of lockdown measures in the country in response to the rapidly-spreading coronavirus pandemic, offering them free accommodation and free meals.

With the students scrambling for a roof over their heads after being asked to vacate their hostels and India banning international flights for a week from March 22 due to the coronavirus pandemic, more than 6,000 rooms in nearly 700 hotels were offered to them by Wednesday following a call from the Indian Embassy.

The Indian Embassy have been running a round-the-clock helpline since last week for the students in the US, who number over 2,50,000.

Most of these hotels offered are in and around universities and colleges, but the hotel owners from across the country have come up in large numbers to the call given by community leaders, who have roped in Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) for the purpose.

India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu said in a tweet, "It is heartening to see that Indian; Indian-American and other hotel owners are coming forward to help people with accommodation in these testing times. Together we can overcome the fight against COVID19!"

"The Indian community has come together to help the student and many hotel owners have offered their rooms free of cost to them. Many of them are also offering free meals to these students," Chicago-based community leader Nirav Patel told PTI.

Indian-American hotelier couple K K Mehta and Chandra Mehta have offered more than 100 rooms to Indian students at their two prime properties each near the Times Square and Barclays Center in New York City, said Jaipur Foot USA chairman Prem Bhandari on behalf of the hotels.

The Indian Consulate in New York had contacted them about this 10 days ago, he said.

"These students are the future of both India and the United States. All the top Indian-American CEOs, scientists and doctors came to this country as a student. It's our moral duty to help them with our resources," Bhandari said.

Regional director of AAHOA Upper Midwest Kalpesh Joshi said they had created a master list of the availability hotel rooms, which was being constantly updated.

Free accommodation would be allocated in coordination with the Indian Embassy and its consulates, he said.

"The Indian Embassy and its consulates are working tirelessly to get these students rooms," he added.

Joshi has also sent out a video message to his hotelier colleagues: "Because of the coronavirus outbreak, our Indian students in the US are out of shelter. Let's work together. As a hotelier, I would like to request all my hotelier friends to come forward... let's provide some rooms to the students."

Boston-based Computer Society of India (North America) has collaborated with AAHOA to help students and Indian IT professionals searching for emergency accommodation due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Anyone who is having financial hardship will be given hotel accommodation either free of cost or the rates will not be more than USD 50, said the Computer Society of India (North America).

Minesh Patel, the chairman of Virginia Asian American Store Association, said between Richmond, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach, Indian-American hotel owners can help in arranging accommodation for over 500 Indian students.

Florida-based Vipul Patel, the national president of Asian American Store Owners Association, said support for the Indian students have been pouring in from the Indian-American hoteliers.

"I have not come across any hotel owner who said no to us," Patel said.

Rooms would be allocated to students on the recommendation of the Indian Embassy and its consulates in Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and New York.

The Indian Consulate in New York was the first to take a lead in this regard. It has worked with Hammock Worldwide Hotels and Resorts to provide temporary accommodation for the students at a flat rate of USD 50 per night.

Joshi said that initially there was a suggestion to charge a convenience fee of USD 20-25 per day from the students.

"But when a few of them offered free rooms and free meals, everyone agreed to it," he said.

According to Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker, the number of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus in the US rose to 1,031 with 68,572 confirmed cases. The US has the third highest number of confirmed cases behind China and Italy.

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News Network
March 24,2020

New Delhi, Mar 24: Reports of a person in China dying due to a virus called hantavirus have spread panic at a time when the world is battling the pandemic of novel coronavirus, which began in China.

The novel coronavirus has killed over 16,000 people around the world and the outbreak is yet to be brought under control.

This morning, hantavirus became one of the top trends on Twitter after the Chinese state media tweeted about one person in the country dying due the virus. However, it turns out, hantavirus is not a new virus and has been infecting humans for decades.

Global Times, a state-run English-language newspaper, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, "A person from Yunnan Province died while on his way back to Shandong Province for work on a chartered bus on Monday. He was tested positive for hantavirus. Other 32 people on bus were tested."

Global Times's hantavirus report on Twitter has been shared over 6,000 times.

On Tuesday, hantavirus was one of the top trends on Twitter.

WHAT IS HANTAVIRUS?

Some people are calling it a new virus but so is not the case. United States's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in a journal writes that currently, the hantavirus genus includes more than 21 species.

"Hantaviruses in the Americas are known as 'New World' hantaviruses and may cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome [HPS]," CDC says. "Other hantaviruses, known as 'Old World' hantaviruses, are found mostly in Europe and Asia and may cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome [HFRS]."

Any man, woman, or child who is around mice or rats that carry harmful hantaviruses can get HPS.

People get HPS when they breath in hantaviruses. This can happen when rodent urine and droppings that contain a hantavirus are stirred up into the air. People can also become infected when they touch mouse or rat urine, droppings, or nesting materials that contain the virus and then touch their eyes, nose, or mouth. They can also get HPS from a mouse or rat bite.

In the US, 10 confirmed cases of hantavirus infection in people who visited Yosemite National Park in California, US, in November 2012, were reported. Similarly, in 2017, CDC assisted health officials in investigating an outbreak of Seoul virus infection that infected 17 people in seven states.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF HANTAVIRUS?

If people get HPS, they will feel sick one to five weeks after they were around mice or rats that carried a hantavirus.

At first people with HPS will have:

Fever
Severe muscle aches
Fatigue

After a few days, they will have a hard time breathing. Sometimes people will have headaches, dizziness, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and stomach pain.

Usually, people do not have a runny nose, sore throat, or a rash.

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Agencies
January 25,2020

Washington, Jan 25: US President Donald Trump's legal team was preparing his defence on Saturday after the Democratic prosecutors ended their marathon 24-hour argument to oust him from office during the Senate trial.

In the arguments spread over three days ending on Friday, the Democrat prosecutors from the House of Representatives that had impeached Trump last month, mostly rehashed the testimonies from the hearings before their committees during the investigation and statements in their chamber.

Like the Democrats' arguments, the Trump defence's counter-arguments, also with 24 hours allotted for it, will be mind-numbing monologues for the most part and the real drama will be on a tussle between the two parties on calling witnesses.

The Democrats failed in their repeated attempts on the first day of the trial on January 28 to include calling testimonies from witnesses in the rules of procedure, but they will get another chance to press their case when the defence rests.

There is a tense wait speckled with speculations to see if the Democrats can get four Republicans to defect and vote to call witnesses after failing to sway a mass defection to get the two-thirds majority to convict Trump.

Trump is charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in the trial presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts with the Senators acting as jurors.

As the time allotted for the prosecution wound down on Friday, the leading prosecutor, Adam Schiff, demanded that the Republican-controlled Senate convict and remove Trump from office, because he was an "imminent threat" to the US and the nation could not wait for the election to throw him out.

Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee that investigated Trump, gave them a personal warning: "No matter how close you are to this president, do you think for a moment that if he felt it was in his interest, he wouldn't ask you to be investigated?

Jerry Nadler, the head of the Judicial Committee that framed the charges in the impeachment, called Trump a "dictator".

Instead of a full sitting of eight hours, the defence will present its case for only two to three hours on Saturday in what Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow called a "trailer (for) coming attractions" in the defence counterarguments.

They will get to use their remaining time next week.

The shorter session starting with fuller presentations next week is partly a concession to media savvy Trump who tweeted that daytime Saturday when his defence was slated is a "death valley" on TV as few viewers would watch a political event at that time.

With Trump certain to be acquitted because the Democrats do not have the two-thirds vote, the impeachment process and the Senate trial are only meant to be an extended media show in their campaign for the November election.

The Democrats want to spiff up the TV spectacle by calling former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump's acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney as witnesses.

Trump could exercise his executive privilege to stop them from testifying, in which case they could go to court to compel their appearance at the Senate trial extending its duration by months if not weeks.

The House charged him with obstruction of Congress because he refused to allow some of this staff to testify and release documents requested by the House investigators.

The Republicans, who want a quick end to the trial, can also counter the Democrats' request for witnesses by calling former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to testify in order to embarrass them and their party.

The Bidens are at the root of the abuse of power charges against Trump.

Trump had asked newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelentsky in a July phone call to investigate the Bidens' dealings in his country as a "favour".

Democrats say that this was inviting foreign intervention in US elections because Joe Biden is the leading Democratic party candidate for the nomination to oppose him.

Moreover, they say that he froze about $400 million in Congressionally-approved military aid for pressure Zelentsky to order the probe and this endangered US national security as Ukraine is at war with Russia.

chiff and the other prosecutors said delaying the aid was an attempt at a quid pro quo.

Zelentsky has said that he did not feel pressured by Trump.

Hunter Biden, who was removed from the Navy allegedly due to drug use and had no energy business experience landed a directorship in a Ukrainian gas company with monthly payments reportedly between $50,000 and $83,000 while his father was overseeing Washington's dealings with Kiev.

The former Vice President has publicly admitted that he got the Ukrainian leaders to fire the prosecutor investigating his son's company.

The Republicans have said that the son's appointment was unethical and the father had the prosecutor removed to protect his son's company.

In their arguments, the Democratic prosecutors said there was nothing wrong in Hunter Biden getting the job and his father had the prosecutor dismissed because he was corrupt.

The defence team is expected to assert that Trump withheld the aid because he wanted to be sure that the new government was not corrupt and the aid was released without a probe.

Anticipating the argument, Schiff said that Trump had allowed the aid to go forward only because it became known and his intent still made him guilty.

In another development impinging on the Trump case, a secret recording said to be of the president ordering the firing of Marie Yovanovitch as US ambassador to Ukraine in 2018 has surfaced.

She was one of the witnesses at the House investigations of the charges against Trump.

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