Sunday 28 October 2012

At least100 Rohingya Muslims killed in Myanmar


At least 100 Rohingya Muslims have been killed in a recent wave of sectarian violence in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, a Muslim party leader says.
 
Hla Thein, the vice chairman of the National Democratic Party for Development (NDPD), said on Friday that over 100 Muslims have lost their lives over the past week in clashes between extremist Buddhists and Rohingyas. 
 
The deadly violence peaked on Tuesday night, but people have been killed every day this week, said the leader of the Muslim political party that won four seats in Myanmar’s 2010 election.
 
Meanwhile, Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing said 112 people had been killed in six townships in clashes that began Sunday between members of the Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya communities. He said 72 people were reported injured, including 10 children.
 
The government announced earlier that almost 2,000 homes had been burned down in the conflict.
 
In June, ethnic violence in the state left at least 90 people dead and destroyed more than 3,000 homes. About 75,000 have been living in refugee camps ever since.
 
A resident of another township, Ramree, said there also was violence there Friday morning.
 
“There were some clashes between the two sides in Ramree this morning,” Kyaw Win, 30, said by phone.
 
“Residents are very fearful of imminent attacks by the Muslim community because security presence is very little. We don't feel safe. We want the Bengalis to be moved away from the Rakhine community,” Kyaw Win said. Rakhine prefer to use the term Bengali for Rohingya, whom they contend are not a distinct ethnic group.
 
Kyaw Win said that a few houses had been burned down but that no casualties were reported.
 
The mob violence has seen entire villages torched and has drawn calls worldwide for government intervention.
 
“As the international community is closely watching Myanmar's democratic transition, such unrest could tarnish the image of the country,” said a statement from the office of President Thein Sein published Friday in the state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper.
 
Thein Sein took office as an elected president last year, and has instituted economic and political liberalization after almost half a century of repressive military rule.
 
“The army, police and authorities in cooperation with local people will try to restore peace and stability and will take legal action against any individual or organization that is trying to instigate the unrest,” the statement warned.
 
The long-brewing conflict is rooted in a dispute over the Muslim residents' origin. Although many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are widely denigrated as intruders who came from neighboring Bangladesh to steal scarce land.
 
The U.N. estimates their population in Myanmar at 800,000. But the government does not count them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and so — like neighboring Bangladesh — denies them citizenship. Human rights groups say racism also plays a role: Many Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, have darker skin and are heavily discriminated against.
 
A statement issued late Thursday by the office of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the latest violence as “deeply troubling.” Ban called on Myanmar authorities “to take urgent and effective action to bring under control all cases of lawlessness.”
 
“The vigilante attacks, targeted threats and extremist rhetoric must be stopped,” Ban said. “If this is not done, the fabric of social order could be irreparably damaged and the reform and opening up process being currently pursued by the government is likely to be jeopardized.”
 
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. was deeply concerned about the reports and urged restraint.
 
In a hospital in Sittwe, the state capital not yet hit by the latest round of violence, an Associated Press photographer talked to four wounded people brought in from the affected areas. Aung Moe Khaing, 25, was wounded in an arm and a leg, saying he was shot Tuesday when soldiers dispersed the crowd.
 
Phyu Thein Maung, 39, from Yathetaung township, said he was shot in the buttocks.
 
“Muslims provoked us from inside their village and challenged us from their community, guarded by soldiers,” he said. “People were very angry as they shot iron spikes at us with catapults and made abusive gestures. I was hit by a gunshot when soldiers dispersed the crowd.”
 
26 October 2012
There have been concerns in the past that soldiers were failing to protect the Rohingya community, but accounts this time from Rakhine villagers suggest that Myanmar's military may have been defending the Rohingya.
 
The crisis has proven a major challenge to Thein Sein's government and to opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been criticized by some outsiders as failing to speak out strongly against what they see as repression of the Rohingya.
 
The U.N. warned Thursday that the crisis had sent a new wave of refugees to seek shelter in camps already overcrowded with 75,000 people from the June violence.
 
Bangladesh has put its border guards on alert, fearing a new influx of Rohingya refugees.
 
On Thursday, Bangladesh border guards turned away 45 Rohingya trying to enter into Bangladesh by boats, said Lt. Col. Khalequzzaman, a border commander. Local police chief Selim Mohammad Jahangir said Friday that at least another 3,000 Rohingya Muslims had been spotted on about 40 boats on the Naaf River off Bangladesh's Tekhnaf coast.
 
He said the boats may try to enter Bangladesh, but “we have instructions not to let them come here.”
 
Bangladesh says it's too poor to accept more refugees and feed them. Bangladesh is hosting about 30,000 Rohingya who fled Myanmar to escape government atrocities in 1991.

Sunday 21 October 2012

US to help Lebanon bomb investigation

22/10/2012
The US says it will help with the investigation into a bomb that killed the head of Lebanon's internal intelligence, a US spokeswoman says.
She said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had agreed with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that her country would provide assistance.
Mrs Clinton spoke to Mr Mikati by phone after the funeral of Wissam al-Hassan, the security official killed on Friday.
Clashes erupted after the funeral, as protesters called on Mr Mikati to quit.
Police fired warning shots and tear gas as some demonstrators tried to storm the government offices in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
There were reports of further violence in southern and western Beirut overnight.
Opposition figures have blamed neighbouring Syria for the attack, protesting against Syria and its Lebanese allies amid fears the Syrian conflict could spill over.
A majority within Lebanon's government support the Syrian regime.
Mr Hassan, 47, was close to the 14 March opposition and the Hariri family, part of the anti-Syrian opposition.
The Syrian government condemned the attack, which also killed one of Mr Hassan's bodyguards and a woman nearby.
Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those who support the Syrian government - including many Shias - and those mostly from the Sunni community who back the rebels.
'Sensitive time'

Wissam al-Hassan

  • Head of the intelligence branch of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces
  • Sunni Muslim born in the northern city of Tripoli in 1965
  • Responsible for the security of former PM Rafik Hariri
  • Viewed as being close to the Hariris and the opposition 14 March coalition
  • Responsible for the August arrest of pro-Syrian politician and ex-information minister Michel Samaha
On Sunday, Mrs Clinton stressed "the United States' firm commitment to Lebanon's stability, independence, sovereignty and security," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
"She noted the importance of political leaders working together at this sensitive time to ensure that calm prevails and that those responsible for the attack are brought to justice," the statement added.
Mr Hassan led an investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which implicated Damascus.
He also recently organised the arrest of a former minister accused of planning a Syrian-sponsored bombing campaign in Lebanon.
Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2005 after a 29-year-long presence, in the wake of Mr Hariri's killing.
But the BBC's Wyre Davies reports that there are concerns in Beirut that Damascus is able to reach into Lebanese society both directly and through its allies.
Mr Hassan was buried next to Mr Hariri on Sunday.
Many mourners waved the light blue flag of the Sunni-based opposition Future Party, while others carried Lebanon's national flag.
Mr Mikati says he offered to resign after the attack, but accepted a request from President Michel Suleiman to stay on in order to avoid a power vacuum.

Three Killed in Shooting at Spa in Wisconsin


BROOKFIELD, Wis..A gunman opened fire inside a day spa in this Milwaukee suburb on Sunday morning, killing three women, forcing others — some bloodied and still in bathrobes — to flee into nearby streets, and sending the authorities on a tense hunt that was slowed by fears of explosives and ended hours later with the discovery of the gunman’s body.
 In addition to the three people killed in the shooting at the Azana Salon and Spa, a long-established shop in a busy suburban commercial district near a mall, four women were injured in the shooting, the authorities said. None of the victims had been publicly named as of Sunday evening as the authorities sought to positively identify them and to notify family
The gunman, whom the police identified as Radcliffe F. Haughton, 45, a resident of Brown Deer, also died inside the spa, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police said. The shootings appeared to stem from a domestic dispute, painfully documented in weeks of police reports and court orders, between Mr. Haughton and his estranged wife, who witnesses said was employed at the salon.
 “Today’s action was a senseless act on the part of one person,” Mayor Steven V. Ponto of Brookfield said somberly late Sunday. He quickly added, “Try as we might, these can’t be avoided.”
 Residents largely view the Milwaukee suburbs as safe and relatively removed from the worries of urban life. “This doesn’t happen in Brookfield,” said Christine Carpenter, 24, who works at a drugstore not far from the spa and on Sunday evening was still trying to grasp what had happened. “You think good neighborhood, good schools — this stuff doesn’t happen to us.”
 In fact, however, in recent years in the Milwaukee suburbs, there have been other such attacks, including a shooting less than three months ago in which a self-proclaimed white supremacist named Wade M. Page opened fire in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. In 2005, here in Brookfield, less than a mile away from the day spa, a gunman killed seven people, including two teenage boys, at an evangelical church meeting, and later killed himself.
 The shooting, the authorities said, began shortly after 11 a.m. Central time, sending staff members and barefoot clients fleeing into parking lots and businesses. Witnesses described a panicked scene of bloodied women and confused passers-by who, at least initially, could not understand what had occurred, even as at least one person was seen crying, according to witnesses, and screaming out to passing cars.
 “Everybody was keeping calm, but we were all confused about what was going on,” said Joe Brent, 27, of Minneapolis who said he had been in a McDonald’s next door to the spa when he heard a gunshot. Almost immediately, said Mr. Brent, who was in town for a job interview, a police officer entered the restaurant and ordered everyone out.
 As he was leaving the McDonald’s, he said, he saw a woman in her 20s leaving the salon, holding a paper towel to her bleeding neck as a police officer escorted her to an ambulance.
 “It was pretty bad,” Mr. Brent said. “I was surprised that she was able to walk.”
He said he then saw officers carry two more women from the salon and put them on stretchers, he said.
Four women — between 22 and 40 years old — were treated for gunshot wounds at Froedtert Hospital, officials at the hospital said. Several had undergone surgery or were expected to soon, the officials said.
As the authorities carried victims away, Police Chief Daniel K. Tushaus said, they faced another problem: they were uncertain where the gunman was, and came upon something that initially appeared to be an improvised explosive device inside the spa — presumably left by the gunman.
 The possibility that the gunman might still be loose set off new chaos, leading the authorities at the hospital where victims were being treated to put the entire facility on lockdown, preventing routine visitors from even entering the building. For hours, highway exits near the spa were closed down, some stores in the nearby mall were shut, and police officers from around the region all but filled the area.