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Slammed for Rohingya massacre, Suu Kyi decides to skip UN gen assembly

Agencies
September 13, 2017

Yangon, Sept 13: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has scrapped plans to attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month, her spokesman said Wednesday, as the Nobel laureate faces intense global scrutiny over the Rohingya refugee crisis.

"The state counsellor won't attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly," said government spokesman Zaw Htay, using Suu Kyi's formal title.

The spokesman did not explain the decision but said the country's Vice President Henry Van Thio would attend the summit, which runs through next week.

The announcement comes after the UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, accused Myanmar of waging a "systematic attack" on Rohingya civilians and warned that "ethnic cleansing" seemed to be under way.

The UN's National Security Council also plans to meet Wednesday to discuss the crisis, which continues to deepen as the number of Rohingya refugees making it to Bangladesh soars to 370,000.

They have fled violence that has torn through Rakhine state since August 25, when militants from the Muslim minority attacked police border posts triggering a major military crackdown.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner for her defiant democracy activism under Myanmar's former junta, was once the darling of the international community.

She made her debut before the UN assembly last September, after becoming former junta-run Myanmar's first civilian leader in decades, winning warm applause for her speech.

She vowed to find a solution to ethnic and religious hatreds in Rakhine "that will lead to peace, stability and development for all communities within the state."

In a sign of how far her star has fallen since, she has been pilloried by the same rights groups that campaigned for her release from house arrest for failing to speak up in defence of the Rohingya.

Several fellow Nobel laureates have also condemned her silence. Denied citizenship by Myanmar, the stateless Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Refugees streaming into Bangladesh have arrived with horrifying stories of indiscriminate killings and arson attacks at the hands of soldiers.

While the US and other Western powers have rebuked the military campaign, Beijing offered words of support ahead of the UN Security Council meeting.
 

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Agencies
July 22,2020

Houston, Jul 22: China said on Wednesday that the US has ordered it to close its consulate in Houston in what an official called an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage China-US relations.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action, which comes as tensions rise between the world's two largest economies. He warned of firm countermeasures if the US does not reverse its decision.

The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Wang said at a daily news briefing.

There was no immediate confirmation or explanation from the U.S. side.

Media reports in Houston said that authorities had responded to reports of a fire at the consulate. Witnesses said that people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing police.

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Agencies
July 29,2020

New Delhi, Jul 29: The new National Education Policy (NEP) approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is set to usher in a slew of changes with the vision of creating an education system that contributes directly to transforming the country, providing high-quality education to all, and making India a global knowledge superpower.

The draft of the NEP by a panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Kasturirangan and submitted to the Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal when he took charge last year. The new NEP replaces the one formulated in 1986.

Some of the key highlights of the New Education Policy are:-

The policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialized areas of interest at a deep level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others.

It identified the major problems facing the higher education system in the country and suggested changes such as moving towards multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with more institutions across India that offer medium of instruction in local/Indian languages, a more multidisciplinary undergraduate education, among others. 

The governance of such institutions by independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy has also been suggested.

Under the suggestions for institutional restructuring and consolidation, it has suggested that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students, and by 2030 each or near every district in the country there will be at least one HEI.

The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs including vocational education from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.

Single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters.

It also pushes for more holistic and multidisciplinary education to be provided to the students.

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News Network
February 22,2020

Johannesburg, Feb 22: To meet shortage of skilled nursing staff, private hospitals in South Africa are recruiting senior Indian nurses for their good work ethics and ability to become efficient trainers for the local staff, according to a media report.

A report at a 2018 jobs summit indicated that the country had a shortage of more than 47,000 nurses.

The shortage of the skilled nursing staff has been attributed to several factors, including preference of highly qualified nurses to emigrate or take up contract employment in countries such as the UK, the United Aarb Emirates, Saudi Arabia or New Zealand for want of higher salaries, a report in the weekly Business Times said.

Mediclinic, one of South Africa's largest private hospital groups, confirmed that it is recruiting 150 nurses from India this year.

“To supplement our training, as an internal strategy, we will continue to recruit senior registered nurses from India,” a Mediclinic spokesperson told the Business Times.

Mediclinic started recruiting nurses from India in 2005 but could not provide details about how many among the more than 8,800 nurses it employs at its hospitals are from India.

Another company, Life Healthcare SA, said it employed 135 Indian nurses between 2008 and 2014.

Top managements at the hospital groups lauded senior Indian nurses as being very efficient trainers for local staff.

“But we find that many of them prefer coming here on short-term contracts due to family commitments," a hospital executive said on the basis of anonymity.

The official said that the few who apply for long-term positions are usually young newly-qualified nurses, which is not the group in demand.

“They work hard, with a patient-oriented work ethic, and do not have the nine-to-five approach of many local nurses, especially those who are unionised," the official said.

“We would be very happy to take in more nursing staff from India," the official added.

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