Myanmar’s Ex-Dictator Than Shwe, Wife Enter Hospital as Precaution Against COVID-19

The Irrawaddy
12 August 2021 

Then Myanmar military dictator Than Shwe (right) and his wife Daw Kyaing Kyaing in 2010. / Khin Maung Win

Myanmar’s former dictator Than Shwe and his wife were admitted to a military hospital in Naypyitaw several days ago as a precaution amid the country’s raging COVID-19 outbreak, according to a senior military official.

The pair—who are reportedly in good health and are believed to have received their inoculations, as the country’s vaccine program prioritizes anyone over 65—entered the hospital “to have close medical attention in case they have been infected with COVID-19,” the military official said.

New ASEAN Envoy to Myanmar Pledges to Meet With Opposition, Detained Activists

THE I DIPLOMAT
Sebastian Strangio
August 10, 2021

The envoy’s mission relies on good faith commitment on the part of the junta, but this remains unlikely.

ASEAN’s newly appointed special envoy to Myanmar says he will insist on meeting with jailed politicians, including Aung San Suu Kyi, in line with the Five-Point Consensus agreed by the Southeast Asian bloc in April.

Second Foreign Minister of Brunei Erywan Yusof was formally appointed by ASEAN last week, after protracted negotiations among the bloc’s 10 member states. Speaking to reporters on Saturday in his first public remarks about the role, he said a plan to visit Myanmar was “in the pipeline,” and would be confirmed once he had consulted with all countries and actors concerned.

Myanmar, Six Months After the Coup

THE I DIPLOMAT

August 10, 2021

 

On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military seized control of the country, arresting civilian leaders and ousting the elected parliament. Since then, the country has perched on the edge of civil war, caught between the use of violent force by the Tatmadaw and a growing armed resistance on the part of ethnic militias as well as the proclaimed National Unity Government. On top of that, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is causing a surge in infections that threatens to collapse the health care system.

Supporting stranded Rohingya in Thailand

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

EUROPEAN CIVIL PROTECTION AND HUMANITARIAN AID OPERATIONS
Source : ECHO
10th August 2021

© IOM Thailand

Despite early success in controlling the pandemic in 2020, Thailand has been gripped by rapidly rising COVID-19 cases and deaths in 2021, driven by the more virulent Delta variant. This has significantly impacted on health and the economy – especially among the vulnerable.

The pandemic has extended to Thailand’s refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers, who face compounded burdens. Migrant and mobile populations have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 as they are unable to implement prevention measures, such as physical distancing, adequate sanitation, accessing medical care and access to personal protective equipment (PPE).

Bangladesh starts COVID-19 vaccine drive for Rohingya refugees

REUTERS
Ruma Paul
August 10, 2021

DHAKA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Bangladesh began vaccinating thousands of Rohingya Muslims on Tuesday in the world’s largest refugee settlement amid a surge in COVID-19 infections in the country, officials said.

Aid workers have long warned of a potential humanitarian disaster if there is a significant outbreak in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the border district where over a million Rohingya who fled a brutal military crackdowns in neighbouring Myanmar have found sanctuary.

Asean too late for Myanmar?

Bangkok Post

EDITORIAL
BANGKOK POST EDITORIAL COLUMN

The appointment of Brunei's Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as Asean special envoy to Myanmar last week is better late than never.

The special envoy's appointment is part of a five-point consensus that was agreed upon by Asean leaders during an April 24 meeting searching for a solution to the Myanmar crisis following the Feb 1 coup that ousted the elected civilian government under Aung San Suu Kyi who has been detained together with other civilian officials.

The delay in the envoy's appointment is described by the international media as due to internal wrangling within the group; with Indonesia and Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines opting for a proactive approach; while the rest, including Thailand, preferring quiet diplomacy which is almost synonymous with sitting on the problem while violence is being committed.

Anti-military protests in Myanmar on anniversary of 1988 uprising

Reuters
August 8, 2021

Myanmar's junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who ousted the elected government in a coup on February 1, presides an army parade on Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo/File Photo

ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းမှာ ကာကွယ်ဆေး စတင်ထိုးနှံ

မဇ္ဈိမ
11 August 2021

ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်နိုင်ငံမှာ ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ရောဂါပိုး စံချိန်တင် ကူးစက်ပြန့်နှံ့နေတဲ့အချိန်မှာဘဲ ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းတွေမှာ ရှိနေတဲ့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာ ဒုက္ခသည်တွေကို ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်အစိုးရက ကိုဗစ်ကာကွယ်ဆေးထိုးတဲ့ အစီအစဉ်တွေ သြ ဂုတ် လ ၁၀ ရက်နေ့မှာ စတင်ပါတယ်။ ဘယ်လိုလူတွေကို ထိုးပေးနေသလဲဆိုတဲ့အကြောင်း AFP သတင်း ကို အခြေ ခံပြီး ကိုဇော်ဝင်းလှိုင်က တင်ဆက်ထားပါတယ်။ 

Link : Here

ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည်တွေကို ကာကွယ်ဆေးစတင်ထိုးနှံ

VOA
ဗွီအိုအေမြန်မာပိုင်း
ဇော်ဝင်းလှိုင်
10 သြဂုတ်၊ 2021

ဥတုပလောင် ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းမှာ ကိုဗစ်ကာကွယ်ဆေးထိုးဖို့စောင့်ဆိုင်းနေကြတဲ့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာ ဒုက္ခသည်များ ( ဓာတ်ပုံ - AFP)

 

ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်နိုင်ငံမှာ ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ရောဂါပိုး စံချိန်တင် ကူးစက်ပြန့်နှံ့နေတဲ့အချိန်မှာဘဲ ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းတွေမှာ ရှိနေတဲ့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာ ဒုက္ခသည်တွေကို ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်အစိုးရက ကိုဗစ်ကာကွယ်ဆေးထိုးတဲ့ အစီအစဉ်တွေ ဒီ ကနေ့ သြဂုတ်လ ၁၀ ရက်နေ့မှာ စတင်ပါတယ်။ ဘယ်လိုလူတွေကို ထိုးပေးနေသလဲဆိုတဲ့အကြောင်း AFP သတင်းကို အခြေခံပြီး ကိုဇော်ဝင်းလှိုင်က ပြောပြပေးပါမယ်။

ဘာသာရေးလွတ်လပ်ခွင့်သည် ကန်နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝါဒ၏ သော့ချက်တရပ် ဖြစ်သည်

VOA

အမေရိကန်အစိုးရမူဝါဒ
August 05, 2021

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power addresses the media following a Security Council vote aimed at ensuring that U.N. officials could monitor evacuations from the Syrian city of Aleppo, Dec. 19, 2016.

ကမ္ဘာတဝန်း ဘာသာရေးလွတ်လပ်ခွင့်နဲ့ အပြန်အလှန်နားလည်မှုကို လေးစားလိုက်နာကြရေး၊ ကျယ်ကျယ် ပြန့်ပြန့် အားပေးဖို့အတွက် အမေရိကန်ပြည်ထောင်စုက သံဓိဌာန်ချမှတ်ထားပါတယ်။ ဒါဟာ အမေရိကန် တွေရဲ့ ခံယူချက်ကို ထင်ဟပ်ရုံတင်မကအမေရိကန်ပြည်တောင်စုရဲ့ မဟာဗျူဟာမြောက် အမျိုးသားအကျိုးစီး ပွားနဲ့ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးမူဝါဒရဲ့ အခရာကျတဲ့ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်လည်းဖြစ်ပါတယ်လို့ USAID - အမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံတကာ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးမှုအေဂျင်စီ အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးမှူး Samantha Power က အခုလိုပြောပါတယ်။

Bangladesh Looks To Russia To Resolve Rohingya Crisis – Analysis

eurasiareview
By Anand Kumar*
Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)

August 8, 2021 

Rohingya refugees. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency

The issue of Rohingya refugees has turned out to be a major problem for Bangladesh in recent times, especially after the mass exodus of Rohingyas from Myanmar in August 2017. Bangladesh has tried to engage bilaterally with Myanmar and also attempted to garner international support to deal with this problem effectively. It has managed to get support not only from the Western countries and the Muslim world but also from important international organisations like the United Nations (UN). Despite this, the problem is far from resolved. In its bid to find a solution to this problem and to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar, Bangladesh has now sought the help of Russia as the relationship of the Myanmar junta with Russia is gathering strength.

ASEAN countries urged to help expedite Rohingya repatriation efforts

UNB

UNB NEWS
DHAKA
AUGUST 08, 2021, 

It's crucial to maintain regional peace to attain full potential, Momen says,

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Sunday urged the ASEAN member states to intervene in the Rohingya issue and help expedite their repatriation to Myanmar.

"For the last four years, there is no violence in the Rakhaine State, yet none of the displaced people of Myanmar returned to their homes mostly because of fear of uncertainty and trust defect," he said.

Read: Bangladesh receives $590 million World Bank financing to tackle Rohingya situation

New ASEAN envoy to Myanmar says he wants full access when he visits

Reuters
August 7, 2021

Brunei's Second Minister of Foreign Affairs Erywan Pehin Yusof addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., September 30, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The Brunei diplomat appointed by a Southeast Asian regional bloc as its special envoy to Myanmar said on Saturday he should be given full access to all parties when he visits the strife-torn country, where the military overthrew an elected government.

Speaking days after his appointment by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Erywan Yusof gave no date for his visit to Myanmar, whose civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials have been detained since the Feb. 1 coup. read more

They Wait Hours to Withdraw Cash, but Most A.T.M.s Are Empty

New York Times
Richard C. Paddock
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

Aug. 7, 2021

Myanmar has been crippled by a cash shortage since the military seized power six months ago, plunging the Southeast Asian nation into a financial crisis.

People lining up to withdraw cash in Yangon, Myanmar, in March. Since the military seized power in a coup six months ago, the Southeast Asian nation has been brought to its knees by a critical lack of cash.Credit...The New York Times

The customers, desperate for cash, began lining up at the A.T.M. at 3:30 a.m. By dawn, the queue had swelled to more than 300 people. By noon, when temperatures had reached 100 degrees, many were still waiting, hoping this would be the day they could finally withdraw money from their own bank accounts.

Two men arrested in US over alleged plot to kill Myanmar's UN ambassador

CNN
Helen Regan and Jamie Crawford,
August 7, 2021

Myanmar UN Representative speaks after issuing plea to the world 04:35

(CNN)Two Myanmar citizens have been charged in New York with allegedly plotting to kill or injure Myanmar's ambassador to the United Nations, Kyaw Moe Tun, the US Attorney's Office said Friday.

The duo are accused of conspiring with an arms dealer in Thailand who sells weapons to the Myanmar military, to "seriously injure or kill" the ambassador "in a planned attack on a foreign official that was to take place on American soil," said Audrey Strauss, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a statement.

U.S. says plot against Myanmar U.N. envoy fits 'disturbing pattern'

REUTERSMichelle Nichols
August 7, 2021

Myanmar's ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun addresses the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo/File Photo

NEW YORK, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday condemned a thwarted plot to attack Myanmar's U.N. ambassador in New York, saying it fits a "disturbing pattern" of authoritarian leaders and their supporters seeking to persecute opponents around the world.

World Bank clarifies its position on Rohingya repatriation

Dhaka Tribune

Tribune Desk
August 3rd, 2021

Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas who have fled their homeland in Rakhine State after being persecuted by their own country Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

The global lender recently sent a letter to ERD attaching a document detailing Rohingyas' freedom of movement, birth certificate, educational and employment opportunities, and infrastructure

The World Bank reviews its refugee policy framework every three years before mobilizing funds under the International Development Assistance window.

The international lender recently solicited input on its current policy review from 16 refugee-hosting nations, including Bangladesh.

World Bank’s Proposal: Local Integration Of Rohingyas In Bangladesh Possible? – OpEd

eurasiareview

MD Pathik Hasan

August 4, 2021 

Rohingya's in Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Bangladesh. Photo taken by John Owens/VOA, Wikipedia Commons.

Absolutely not is my answer in this regard. Why will Bangladesh give them shelter permanently? Why will Bangladesh integrate the Myanmar’s citizens with its own inner land.

Bangladesh has been hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char since military crackdowns in 2017 started driving the ethnic minorities out of Myanmar.

Rohingya Repatriation: WB clarifies its position

The Daily Star

Staff Correspondent

Wed Aug 4, 2021

The World Bank addressed its position on the Rohingya issue on its website yesterday.

In a question-and-answer format, the World Bank spoke of Rohingya repatriation, its Refugee Policy Review and other issues.

Recently, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said that the World Bank sent a letter attaching a document that spoke of Rohingyas' freedom of movement, birth certificates, privileges of education and job, and infrastructure.

Although the document was not Bangladesh-specific, the government informed the World Bank that it would not agree to those suggestions, the foreign minister had said.

ASEAN’s humanitarian aid to Myanmar must not legitimise military junta: Progressive Voice & FORUM-ASIA

TOC

The Online Citizen
Asia, Civil Society
04/08/2021

“ASEAN and the international community must recognize and engage with the NUG, and disengage with the junta in provision of humanitarian assistance to prevent them from weaponizing humanitarian aid."

 Protesters hold a banner supporting the National Unity Government (NUG) during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on 11 July 2021 (Source: AFP)

The Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the rest of the international community must provide humanitarian assistance through the COVID-19 Task Force set up by the Ministry of Health under interim government of Myanmar – the National Unity Government (NUG) – and Ethnic Health Organisations, as well as through cross-border channels, local humanitarian networks, ethnic service providers, and community-based organisations, said Progressive Voice and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) in a joint statement on Wednesday (4 Aug).