Amid Burma Doctor Lock Up Guterres Praised Army on Child Soldiers Shameful Drop From List of Shame

Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon

BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

April 20'2021

SDNY / UN GATE, April 20 – After the Burma coup regime fired its New York-based UN ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun for his speech in New York in the usually scripted UN General Assembly, the New York Times reported that the speech had been in Geneva.

Seven hours later, that remained uncorrected. Still, an official of Volkan Bozkir, who in fine Myanmar fashion refuses to name the authors of the letters and CVs of opponents to UN Sec-Gen Antonio Guterres, bragged about the session.

But the reality is, Guterres removed Burman's or Myanmar's army from the UN "list of shame" for recruiting and using child soldiers, despite more than 200 cases. Emboldened by corrupt Guterres, they are recruiting and using even more. Now a call for Guterres, trying to steal a second term, to reinstate them on the list - but from a group which seems to join Guterres in banning Inner City Press from (its) press conference.

100 Rohingya girls living in Bangladesh camps get scholarship from Kuwait

Financial Express

April 20, 2021

Kuwait has pledged to give 100 girls from the Rohingya refugee community in Bangladesh four-year university scholarships, Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) said on Sunday.

Kuwait's Finance House announced the bursaries after an agreement was signed between the KRCS and the Asian University of Bangladesh, based in Dhaka, according to Kuwait's state news agency KUNA.

စစ်ကောင်စီရဲ့ ဖိနှိပ်မှုကြောင့် တိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ ပိုပြီးနီးကပ် လာ

RFA
လွတ်လပ်တဲ့အာရှအသံ
ဂျူလိုင်မျိုး(ဝါရှင်တန်ဒီစီ)
2021-04-20

မြန်မာ့ရှေ့ရေးဘယ်လိုလဲ

VOA
သတင်းသုံးသပ်ချက်
ဦးကျော်ဇံသာ
21 ဧပြီ၊ 2021

Anti-coup protesters raise decorated Easter eggs along with the three-fingered symbols of resistance during a protest against the military coup on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021, in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo)

 

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ စစ်တပ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုဟာ တပ်မတော်ရဲ့ ဂုဏ်သတင်း ညှိုးနွမ်းသွားစေတဲ့ လုပ်ရပ်ဖြစ် တယ်၊ အာဏာသိမ်းမှုကြောင့် ကြုံတွေ့နေရတဲ့ စိတ်ပျက်ဖွယ် အခြေအနေက လောလောဆယ် ထွက် ပေါက်မမြင် ဘူးလို့ Georgetown တက္ကသိုလ်က မြန်မာ့အရေးကျွမ်းကျင်သူ ဂုဏ်ထူးဆောင်ပါမောက္ခ David Steinberg သုံးသပ်ပါတယ်။ ပါမောက္ခ Steinberg နဲ့ ဦးကျော်ဇံသာ ဆွေးနွေးသုံးသပ်ထားပါ တယ်။ 

Myanmar refugee crisis brewing as turmoil hits economy

my JOURNAL COURIER

ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer
April 21, 2021

FILE - In this April 8, 2021, file photo, anti-coup protesters walk through a market with images of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, Myanmar. Aid workers and activists are warning Myanmar's political upheavals could cause a regional refugee crisis as political strife following a Feb. 1 coup displace growing numbers of people who have lost their livelihoods. coming in a couple hours.AP

BANGKOK (AP) — Aid workers and activists are warning Myanmar’s political upheavals risk causing a regional refugee crisis as the strife following a February coup displaces growing numbers of people who have lost their livelihoods.

Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar, said violence has left nearly 250,000 people displaced. As Myanmar’s neighbors prepare for a summit this week to discuss the coup, he and other rights advocates are warning that the situation could spiral out of control.

“The world must act immediately to address this humanitarian catastrophe," Andrews said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

The case for a US missile strike on Myanmar

ASIA TIMES

ANTHONY DAVIS

APRIL 21, 2021

US could not unilaterally invoke 'R2P' to intervene in Myanmar's crisis but that doesn't mean the military option is off the table

Protesters hold signs relating to "R2P", or the "Responsibility to Protect" principle that the international community is justified in taking action against a state that is deemed to have failed to protect its population from atrocities, as they take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, April 12, 2021. Photo: AFP / Stringer

BANGKOK – Nearly 80 days and 800 deaths after the military coup of February 1, two divergent trendlines have emerged to define the future contours of Myanmar’s crisis: brutal reassertion of control by the military junta over a political and economic wasteland; or descent into civil war pitting the junta against a nascent coalition of forces fighting for federal democracy.

Covid-19: 10 Rohingyas dead, 507 infected since last year

The Daily Star
Star Digital Report

April 20, 2021

File photo/Reuters

A total of 507 Rohingya refugees were infected with Covid-19 in the camps of Cox's Bazar since the coronavirus outbreak started March last year.

Dr Md Mahbubur Rahman, civil surgeon of Cox's Bazar, confirmed the information to our Cox's Bazar staff correspondent.

Of the 507 infected Rohingyas, 10 died from Covid-19, the doctor said.

Currently, nearly 8,88,457 Rohingyas are living in 34 refugee camps in Ukhia and Teknaf upazilas of Cox's Bazar, added our correspondent.

According to the Cox's Bazar Civil Surgeon's office, a total of 7,590 people were infected with coronavirus in Cox's Bazar district till yesterday since March last year and 89 people died. Among them, 507 are Rohingya refugees and the remaining are local residents of Cox's Baza.

IOM Bangladesh Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis Response - Monthly Situation Report (March 2021)

Situation Report
Source:IOM
19 Apr 2021

Myanmar military junta arrests prominent trade union leader

the GUARDIAN

Sarah Johnson
Mon 19 Apr 2021

Daw Myo Aye, labour organiser and a leader of civil disobedience protests, dragged from office by army.

Soldiers in Yangon patrolling the streets by night. Thousands of people have been arrested and hundreds killed since the military junta seized power. Photograph: AFP/Getty

One of Myanmar’s leading trade union leaders has been arrested as part of escalating attacks on pro-democracy figures by the military junta.

Daw Myo Aye, director of Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar (STUM), one of Myanmar’s largest independent unions, is a central figure in the movement for workers’ rights.

Outcry in Myanmar as military airs images of ‘tortured’ detainees

Aljazeera

19 Apr 2021

Fresh appeals for action after military TV broadcasts images of six young detainees whose faces appear bloodied and bruised.

This handout photo taken and released by Dawei Watch on April 15, 2021 shows protesters taking part in a demonstration against the military coup in Dawei's Launglone township [Handout/ Dawei Watch via AFP]

A monitoring group in Myanmar has appealed for international action, expressing concern over the torture and murder of anti-coup protesters in the Southeast Asian nation after the military broadcast images of six young detainees bearing severe signs of abuse.

Rohingya repatriation losing Int'l attention

Prothomalo

Raheed Ejaz

Dhaka
20 Apr 2021

• The budget for Rohingya emergency response is yet to be finalised

• $2.29 billion dollar allocated against the demand of $3.43 billion in last 4 years

• The joint response plan 2021 seeks $1.00 billion

Two and a half months have already passed since the Myanmar military seized the state power in a coup on 1 February.

As the time rolls on, protests against the junta government and bloodshed are intensifying.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has called a special summit to discuss the crisis in Myanmar.

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is going to attend the summit in Jakarta, Indonesia on 24 April. However, the National Unity Government led by the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) has urged the ASEAN not to recognise the Myanmar junta leader.

The ongoing crisis in Myanmar and the global reactions on the issue has made uncertain the repatriation of millions of Rohingya people to Myanmar from the cramped camps in Bangladesh while the burning issue is losing the international attention.

S Jaishankar, US Secretary Of State Discuss Security Issues In Afghanistan, Myanmar

NDTV

All IndiaPress 

Trust of India
April 20, 2021

Antony Blinken spoke with Mr Jaishankar to reaffirm the importance of the US-India relationship and cooperation on regional security issues, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to mutual support for restoration of democracy in Myanmar

Washington: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his American counterpart Tony Blinken on Monday discussed on phone bilateral and regional issues including Afghanistan, Myanmar, and climate change.

"Had a warm and productive conversation with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar to reaffirm the importance of the US-India relationship. We discussed regional security issues of mutual concern in Afghanistan and Burma and global challenges such as climate change," Mr Blinken said in a tweet.

UN Urges Bangladesh to Delay Rohingya Refugee Island Transfers

THE I DIPLOMAT
By Sebastian Strangio
April 20, 2021

The controversial island relocation plan points to the challenges facing the resolution of the refugee crisis in southeastern Bangladesh.

The United Nations refugee agency is urging Bangladesh to slow down its relocation of Rohingya refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal until measures to protect residents from storms and flooding are fully in place, BenarNews reported on Friday.

Since December, the government has moved a total of 18,304 Rohingya from the crowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar district, close to the border with Myanmar, to Bhasan Char, an island lying some 34 kilometers offshore.

According to the report, a team from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) visited the Bhasan Char in mid-March and acknowledged that the government had made “extensive investments” in infrastructure and safeguards on the flood-prone island, but said further improvements were necessary

မြန်မာနိုငံတွင်းရှိမွတ်စလင်ဆန် ့ကျင်ရေးအကြမ်းဖက်မှုပုံစံများ ( ၂၀၁၂ )

ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်မြောက်ပိုင်းရှိရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်မှုများအားမှတ်တမ်းတင်ခြင်း

Link : Here

The battle for Myanmar plays out on Twitter, TikTok and Telegram

DW

Date 20.04.2021
Author Ole Tangen Jr

Young activists are risking arrest and using technology to ensure that their campaign for democracy continues in the face of a military clampdown on the internet.

Myanmar's young, grassroots protest movement uses social media to organize

Thinzar Shunlei Yi is one of the few pro-democracy activists in Myanmar who is willing to do on-the-record interviews.

But while her identity may be known, her location and data are protected by layers of security protocols.

The Big Question: Can Myanmar’s Democracy Be Rescued?

Bloomberg

Bloomberg Opinion
Nisid Hajari
18 April 2021, 

A Q&A with Derek Mitchell, former U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar, on how to support the aspirations of Myanmar’s people and build a better future for democracies around the world.

Braving bullets in Yangon.Photographer: STR/AFP

This is one of a series of interviews by Bloomberg Opinion columnists on how to solve today’s most pressing policy challenges. It has been condensed and edited.

Nisid Hajari: Since Myanmar’s military ousted the country’s elected government on Feb. 1, security forces have reportedly killed at least 700 people. Observers are warning that Myanmar risks turning into a Southeast Asian Syria, with a failed economy, open warfare in border areas and refugees pouring into Thailand and India. You served as the U.S.’s ambassador to Myanmar from 2012 to 2016, the first person to hold the position in 22 years. How bad do you think things are going to get there?

Episode 190 -- Update on the Russia and Burma Sanctions Programs

JDSUPRA

April 18, 2021

Last week, the Biden Administration announced new and significant trade sanctions against Russia. The action was long expected given the Biden Administration’s criticism of Russia, and was a comprehensive response to Russia’s interference in the 2020 US election, its SolarWinds cyberattack and its ongoing occupation of Crimea and threatening addition of troops along the Ukraine border.

Over the last few months, OFAC has ratcheted up sanctions against Burma in response to the military coup and continuing crackdown against protesters.

In this Episode, Michael Volkov provides an overview on the Russia and Burma sanctions programs.

Link : Here

India’s Adani Faces Scrutiny for Port Deal in Myanmar

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dieter Holger

April 19, 2021 

Adani Group says it halted transactions with a Myanmar military-linked company for a port project that it says doesn’t violate U.S. sanctions

An Adani Group building on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India.PHOTO: AMIT DAVE/REUTERS

A major index provider and some investors are distancing themselves from the marine-ports operator controlled by Indian conglomerate Adani Group over past business transactions with a company linked to the military regime in Myanmar.

Financial data firm S&P Global Inc. last week said it would remove Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. from its Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, which consists of various different regional indexes holding companies that rank highly on environmental and social affairs. Adani Ports was among around 100 indexed companies in the emerging markets category.

Japanese journalist held in Myanmar moved to prison, embassy says

the japan times

KYODO
Apr 19, 2021

YANGON, MYANMAR – A Japanese freelance journalist detained by security forces in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon has been investigated for allegedly spreading fake news, the Japanese Embassy in Myanmar said Monday.

Yuki Kitazumi, a former reporter for the Tokyo-based Nikkei business daily who now lives in Yangon, was detained by security forces in Yangon on Sunday, local media reported. The embassy said earlier Monday that Kitazumi was transferred to prison.

Kitazumi’s reports on protests against the Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar have been carried by Japanese media and he has also posted about the situation in the country on social media, which could be regarded as information disadvantaging the ruling military and “fake news.”