By: AFP - Agence France Presse Two civilians were killed in Cameroon after being shot by soldiers, the army said Wednesday, the latest violence in a region hit by bloody conflict between anglophone separatists and the state. The army said that the "unfortunate incident" happened on Monday in Nylbat-Andek in country's North West -- one of Cameroon's two English-speaking regions -- after three soldiers disobeyed orders and attacked villagers. The men, acting "in violation of their instructions, attacked some residents on whom one of the soldiers unfortunately opened fire", said Colonel Cyrille Atonfack, communications officer at the ministry of defence, in a press statement. The victims were two women aged 47 and 49, the statement said. The army said the soldiers were arrested and an investigation had been opened. The North West and South West regions of Cameroon have suffered a bloody conflict between anglophone separatists and the state for years. English speakers make up a majority of the regions' populations in predominantly French-speaking Cameroon, which President Paul Biya has ruled with an iron fist since 1982. Anglophone resentment at perceived discrimination snowballed into the declaration of an independent state in 2017 -- the "Federal Republic of Ambazonia" -- an entity that is not recognised internationally. Biya, 89, has resisted calls for more autonomy in the regions and responded with a crackdown on the separatists. The violence has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced around a million people, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank. International monitors and the United Nations say both sides have committed abuses, including crimes against civilians. In February 2020, at least 23 people were killed in a military raid on the village of Ngarbuh in the North West, 15 of whom were children, according to UN figures. https://www.barrons.com/news/two-civilians-shot-by-soldiers-in-breakaway-cameroon-region-01663789806?tesla=y © Agence France-Presse

A demonstrator waves a Russian flag as he gathers with others during a protest to ...Copyright © africanews OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT/AFP or licensors By Rédaction Africanews with AFP A number of thousands of people demonstrated Wednesday in Diapaga, in eastern Burkina Faso, to demand "more security", three days after a deadly attack on a neighboring town whose death toll remains unknown. "SOS", "We also have the right to life", "What is our fault for being abandoned?", could be read on the numerous signs of the demonstrators who walked the streets of the town of Diapaga, in the province of Tapoa. On Sunday, suspected jihadists attacked the town of Partiaga, in this province, killing several people, according to residents and a security source. According to the governor of the region, Hubert Yameogo, who said an assessment would be drawn up "as soon as possible", the "terrorists cowardly attacked civilians, ransacked and set fire to material goods". According to residents, the Burkinabe armed forces abandoned the town before the attack. Wednesday's demonstration aims to "denounce the inaction of the authorities during the Partiaga tragedy and demand protection and more security for all," according to one of the protesters, Issa Lankoandé. "We are citizens of Burkina Faso and we cannot be left at the mercy of the terrorist hordes," he added. Burkina Faso has seen a resurgence of jihadist violence since the beginning of the year, with dozens of deaths - civilians and soldiers - almost every week. Last week, the army announced a "provisional death toll" of 51 in an ambush targeting soldiers on February 17 in the far north of the country. It was the deadliest attack since Captain Ibrahim Traoré came to power in a coup in late September 2022. And on Monday, at least 15 soldiers died, again in the north, near the Malian border, according to security sources. The violence has left more than 10,000 civilians and soldiers dead since 2015, according to NGOs, and some two million people displaced.

Leader of the Democratic Alliance John Steenhuisen says the new law goes against South Africa’s principle of non-racialism. (Photo by Gianluigi Guercia / AFP) The opposition Democratic Alliance plans a mass protest on Wednesday against South Africa’s new employment law. A new law aimed at increasing the employment of black people in South Africa has enraged some businesses and the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), who say qualified workers could lose their jobs. The Employment Equity Act (2020) was signed into law on 12 April and is due to take effect on 1 September. It allows the Ministry of Labour and Employment to set ‘equity targets’ for companies with more than 50 employees. The government has rebuffed criticism, saying the bill is not going to result in job losses and only seeks to promote diversity in what the World Bank says is the world’s most unequal country. But the DA, South Africa’s leading opposition party, has called for a “mass protest” in Cape Town on Wednesday against what it has dubbed the “race quotas” bill. The DA, which has traditionally appealed to a predominantly white electorate, has taken legal action to have parts of the new law struck down, saying it violates South Africa’s constitutional principle of non-racialism. Losing jobs DA leader John Steenhuisen said 600,000 people risk losing their jobs “because they have the ‘wrong’ skin colour or live and work in the ‘wrong’ areas”. Three decades after the end of apartheid, South Africa remains plagued by stark inequalities. Almost one in two black South Africans were unemployed in the first three months of 2023, while the joblessness rate was only 9.5% among white people, according to official figures. The new law requires companies with more than 50 employees to submit equity plans reflecting the demography of the region they operate in and set out how they intend to achieve them. It also allows for the labour minister to set numerical targets for specific economic sectors. Gareth Ackerman, chairman of Pick n Pay, one of South Africa’s largest grocery retailers, said the law threatens private employers whose workforce does not mirror racial demographics. Qualified vs unqualified “This would have the effect of making large numbers of qualified people unemployed and substituting them with unqualified people,” he said this month. But others disagree. “It does not mean that the white people are going to be removed in order to create space for the disadvantaged groups,” labour minister Thulas Nxesi told a local broadcaster. Commenting on the law in May, legal firm Baker McKenzie said fostering diversity has “proven to be good business practice” and “equal representation in the workforce is seen as a positive by investors”. South Africa’s largest trade union said the controversy surrounding the bill was overblown. “It is a rational bill and not this big monster the DA is making it to be,” said Matthew Parks, the spokesman of trade union COSATU. White people account for less than 10% of South Africa’s 60 million population, but hold more than 60% of top management roles according to a recent study, he said. The debate comes as South Africa heads towards national elections next year. Polls suggest the ruling African National Congress, in power since the end of white rule in 1994, risks seeing its share of the vote drop below 50%. © 2023 The Africa Report

Former Khmer Rouge leader head of state Khieu Samphan (C) denies being part of the killing machine that decimated nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population One of the top surviving leaders of Cambodia's ruthless Khmer Rouge regime on Friday denied genocide charges and rejected the label of "murderer" in forceful closing remarks at a lengthy UN-backed trial. The Khmer Rouge's former head of state, 85-year-old Khieu Samphan, spoke angrily to the Phnom Penh chamber trying him and another senior leader, 90-year-old Nuon Chea, for the regime's killing of ethnic Vietnamese and Muslim minorities, forced marriage and rape. The men are the two most senior living members of the radical Maoist group that seized control of Cambodia in 1975 and carried out some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Up to two million people are believed to have been killed by the time the Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979. The pair were handed life sentences in 2014 after convictions over the forced evacuation of around two million Cambodians from Phnom Penh into rural labour camps and murders at one execution site. But Khieu Samphan, who was one of the Khmer Rouge's few public faces as its head of state, claims he was not part of the killing machine that exterminated nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population from 1975-1979. Up to two million people died under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979 On Friday Khieu Samphan denied responsibility for the mass murders and other abuses against Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese, which were described in chilling detail by more than 100 witnesses throughout the three-year trial. "I didn't know about these issues," he said, adding that the "idea of Cambodian genocide" was invented by Vietnam. At one point he made eye contact with witnesses who had described graphic accounts of Khmer Rouge cadres committing cannibalism, mass rape and holding killing competitions of the minority groups. "I know that they really suffered. I also heard when they spoke to me sometimes referring to me as a murderer....But the term murderer, I categorically reject it," he said. Nuon Chea, known as "Brother Number Two," declined to deliver a closing statement and watched the proceedings from a court holding cell due to his frail health. His lawyer said Nuon Chea believed he was part of a "show trial". "Nuon Chea couldn't care less if you convict him again to a life sentence... he doesn't take this institution seriously," defence lawyer Victor Koppe told the courtroom. The judge has not said when the verdict will be delivered. The hybrid court, which uses a mix of Cambodian and international law, was created with the backing of the UN in 2006 to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders. The number of allegations against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan was so vast the court split their trials into a series of smaller hearings in 2011, fearful the pair might die before a verdict could be delivered. Only three people have been convicted by the court as several key Khmer Rouge leaders have died without facing justice, including "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, who passed away in 1998. In February the tribunal dismissed a case against a mid-level Khmer Rouge official charged with crimes against humanity, saying she was not high-ranking enough to fall under the court's jurisdiction. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Agence France-Presse

This picture taken on September 1, 2023 shows a view of destruction in a livestock market area in al-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state. (Photo by AFP) Five civilians were killed by bombs that “fell on their homes” in Khartoum, a Sudanese medical source told AFP, a day after an air strike in the city’s south killed at least 20 civilians. Residents of the war-torn capital reported the city was again pummelled by artillery and rocket fire Sunday, in the fifth month of war between the army and paramilitary fighters. “The death toll from the aerial bombardment” in southern Khartoum late Saturday “has risen to 20 civilian fatalities”, according to a statement from the neighbourhood’s resistance committee. They are among many volunteer groups that used to organise pro-democracy demonstrations and now provide assistance to families caught in the line of fire. In an earlier statement, they said the victims included two children, and warned that more fatalities went unrecorded, as “their bodies could not be moved to the hospital because they were severely burned or torn to pieces in the bombing”. Since war began between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, around 5,000 people have been killed, according to conservative estimates from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project. The Sudanese Armed Forces control the skies and have carried out regular air strikes while RSF fighters dominate the streets of the capital. Western countries have accused the paramilitaries and allied militias of killings based on ethnicity in the western Darfur region, and the International Criminal Court has opened a new probe into alleged war crimes. The army has also been accused of abuses, including a July 8 air strike that killed around two dozen civilians. More than half of Sudan’s 48 million people now require humanitarian aid and protection, and six million are “one step away from famine”, according to the United Nations. Despite insecurity, looting and bureaucratic obstacles, the world body says it has been able to get aid to millions of those in need. The war has internally displaced around 3.8 million people, the UN says, while another million have crossed borders into neighbouring countries. Among the displaced are nearly 2.8 million from Khartoum, according to the International Organization for Migration. That is more than half the capital’s pre-war population of around five million. Those who remain shelter from the crossfire, rationing water and electricity. In Khartoum, resistance committees have been some of the only sources of relief, helping dig survivors out of the rubble of bombed buildings, braving gunfire on the streets to deliver medicine and documenting atrocities committed by both sides. Nearly five months in, the violence shows no signs of abating. Witnesses on Sunday again reported the army targeting RSF positions in northern Khartoum with “artillery and rocket fire”. © 2023 Channels Incorporated Limited. All rights reserved.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez tells of 257 cases in the Paris region alone and 90 arrests A man walks by Stars of David tagged on a wall on Tuesday in Paris, France. [Photograph: Michel Euler/AP] Agence France-Presse November 6, 2023 France has recorded more than a thousand antisemitic acts since the deadly 7 October attack by Hamas gunmen on Israel, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has said. “The number of antisemitic acts has exploded,” he told France 2 television, adding that 486 people had been arrested for such offences, including 102 foreigners. Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 hostages, Israeli authorities say. Since then, Israel has attacked the Gaza Strip in its battle to destroy Hamas, levelling many buildings and areas and, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, killing more than 9,700 people, mostly women and children. France’s Jewish population, estimated at over 500,000, is the largest in Europe and the third-biggest in the world, after Israel and the US. Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said on Sunday that there had been 257 antisemitic acts in the Paris region alone, and 90 arrests. There was no typical profile for those arrested, he added. They ranged from “young kids who say very serious things” to people involved in the pro-Palestinian cause who had gone too far. The Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, called for all political forces to mobilise against antisemitism. In comments to Radio J, he suggested a demonstration in the next few days at Place de la Republique, a regular site for rallies in central Paris. But his initiative immediately came under fire from politicians on the left for his failure to rule out allowing the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen to take part. Paris prosecutors are already investigating the daubing of dozens of Stars of David on buildings around the city and its suburbs last week. The Union of Jewish Students of France said they were designed to mirror the way Jews were forced to wear stars by the Nazi regime. In the central city of Lyon, prosecutors said this weekend they suspected that antisemitism may have been behind an attack on a young Jewish woman, who was stabbed in her home. Police were treating the attack as attempted murder, they said, adding that the woman’s life was not in danger and no arrest had been made. And the mayor in the eastern city of Besancon on Sunday denounced what she said was a fresh wave of antisemitic graffiti, after a first set appeared on 31 October. “We are witnessing an escalation of violence in the content of messages,” said Anne Vignot, noting that such behaviour could be prosecuted. The developments in France came as the European Commission condemned the jump in antisemitism across the EU since the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, saying “European Jews today are again living in fear”. “The spike of antisemitic incidents across Europe has reached extraordinary levels in the last few days, reminiscent of some of the darkest times in history,” the commission said in a statement. “We condemn these despicable acts in the strongest possible terms. They go against everything that Europe stands for.” Citing antisemitic incidents in Austria, France, Germany and Spain, as well as “demonstrators chanting hate slogans against Jews”, the commission, which is the EU’s executive arm, said it was essential to push back against both antisemitism “as well as the rise in anti-Muslim hatred that we have been witnessing over the past weeks – which has no place in Europe”. © 2023 The Guardian

Authorities say 19 more were seriously injured in blasts at wedding, hospital and funeral in country’s north-east The Guardian with Agence France-Presse in Kano 30 June 2024 A man injured in one of the attacks arrives for treatment at a hospital in Maiduguri on Saturday. Photograph: Audu Marte/AFP/Getty Images At least 18 people have been killed and 19 seriously injured in suicide attacks targeting a wedding, a hospital and a funeral in north-east Nigeria, authorities have said. In one of three blasts on Saturday in the town of Gwoza, a woman with a baby strapped to her back detonated explosives in the middle of a wedding ceremony, according to state police. The Borno state police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso said: “At about 1545 (1445 GMT) a woman carrying a baby on her back detonated an improvised explosive device she had on her at a crowded motor park.” Female suicide bombers also targeted a hospital in the same town, which lies across the border from Cameroon. Another attack was later carried out at the funeral for victims of the wedding blast, authorities said. The region has been scarred by more than a decade of violence by the jihadist group Boko Haram, which did not immediately claim responsibility for the string of attacks. Barkindo Saidu, the head of Borno state’s emergency management agency, said in a report seen by Agence France-Presse that “18 deaths comprising children, men, females and pregnant women” had so far been reported. Nineteen “seriously injured” people were taken to the regional capital, Maiduguri, while 23 others were awaiting evacuation, Saidu said in the report. A member of a militia assisting the military in Gwoza said two colleagues and a soldier were also killed in a separate attack on a security post, though authorities did not immediately confirm this toll. Although Boko Haram has lost ground in recent years, jihadists continue to attack rural communities in Nigeria on a regular basis. Over the course of the insurgency, Boko Haram has repeatedly deployed young women and girls to carry out suicide attacks. The group seized Gwoza in 2014 when its militants took over swathes of territory in northern Borno. The town was taken back by the Nigerian military with help from Chadian forces in 2015 but the group has continued to launch attacks from mountains near the town. Boko Haram has carried out raids, killing men and kidnapping women who venture outside the town in search of firewood and acacia fruit. The violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced about 2 million in north-east Nigeria. The conflict has spread to neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the militants.

Rwandan-backed rebels seize Kanyabayonga, says official, already home to thousands driven from their homes by conflict. Agence France-Presse in Kanyabayonga Civilians flee the fighting around Birundule in North Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in May. Photograph: Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have seized a strategic town in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east, a local official said. “Kanyabayonga has been in the hands of the M23 since Friday evening,” the administrative official said, under condition of anonymity. Kanyabayonga lies on the northern front of the conflict in North Kivu province, which has been rocked by violence since 2021 when the M23 (March 23 Movement) resumed its armed campaign in the region. The town is considered a pathway to the major commercial centres of Butembo and Beni in the north. Kanyabayonga is home to more than 60,000 people, as well as tens of thousands who have fled there in recent months, driven from their homes by the advance of the rebels. The town is in the Lubero territory, the fourth territory in the North Kivu province that the group has entered after Rutshuru, Nyiragongo and Masisi. “The population is there [in Kanyabayonga], especially those who had moved from the territory of Rutshuru to Lubero,” the administrative official said. “They no longer have anywhere to go, it is total desolation, the population is tired.” One resident told Agence-France Presse that the M23 had asked residents to stay in Kanyabayonga during a meeting in the centre of the town held by M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma on Saturday. “They are going to reach Kinshasa, how far will we continue to flee?” the resident said, adding that the rebels were “promising us peace”. “We are seeing an influx of displaced people from Miriki, Kirumba and Luofu towards the north,” the military administrator of the Lubero territory, Col Alain Kiwewa, said. “It is a situation that worries us,” he added. Local sources said on Friday that fighting between Congolese forces and the rebels was intensifying around the town. Those in towns outside Kanyabayonga also witnessed fighting. “All night bullets rang out,” said a youth leader in Kayna, which lies 17 km (10 miles) north of Kanyabayonga. The youth leader, who did not wish to give his name, said those who had come to the town from the Kanyabayonga area “spent the night under the stars” and were fearful. “We no longer know which saint to turn to,” he said. In Kirumba, about 25km (15 miles) from Kanyabayonga, the population is in a “state of panic”, one civil society leader said on condition of anonymity. “We can’t move any more, where will we go? We don’t know where to go,” he said. Clashes “are causing displacement of civilians,” the UN Joint Human Rights Office said in its monthly report on Friday. “Humanitarian organisations providing support to the displaced have suspended their operations for security reasons,” it said. © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

Clashes have rocked Rakhine State since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November This photo taken on May 21, 2024 shows people rebuilding temporary homes near a destroyed building following fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA) ethnic minority armed group in a village in Minbya Township in Rakhine State. | Photo Credit: AFP Myanmar's Rakhine State is facing a terrifying situation similar to the run-up to "genocidal violence" eight years ago against the persecuted Rohingya minority, a UN expert warned on July 4. Speaking at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Thomas Andrews, the special rapporteur on the situation in Myanmar, voiced deep alarm at recent events in the western region. "The situation in Rakhine State, where the junta is rapidly losing territory to the Arakan Army, is terrifying," Mr. Andrews said. "For Rohingya people — oppressed, scapegoated, exploited, and stuck between warring parties — the situation carries echoes of the lead-up to genocidal violence in 2016 and 2017." Clashes have rocked Rakhine State since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November. That ended a ceasefire that had largely held since a military coup in 2021 after a short-lived experiment with democracy. AA fighters have seized swathes of territory, piling pressure on the junta as it battles opponents elsewhere. Mr. Andrews, an independent expert appointed by the rights council who does not speak on behalf of the UN, said the military had been conscripting "thousands of Rohingya youth and mobilising them against the Arakan Army". "Even though many Rohingya young men have been taken to the front lines of the conflict against their will, the potential for retaliation by members of the Arakan community, and a downward spiral of violence, is enormous," he cautioned. Mr. Andrews said there were reports linking AA soldiers to rights violations against Rohingya civilians, at a time when the humanitarian situation for both Rohingya and Rakhine people was "extremely dire". He said "tens, if not hundreds of thousands, have been displaced in Rakhine State". In May, the AA said it had seized the town of Buthidaung in northern Rakhine, home to many Rohingya Muslims. Several Rohingya diaspora groups later accused the AA of forcing Rohingya to flee and then looting and burning their homes — claims the AA called "propaganda". The AA, which says it is fighting for autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine population, has vowed to capture the whole of the state. Copyright© 2024, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies.

By Jared Ferrie Myanmar tops a list of countries where the ability of aid groups to reach people in need has worsened in the past six months, the Geneva-based research group ACAPS has said. In examining 37 countries, ACAPS analysts considered nine indicators, including violence against humanitarian workers and restrictions preventing people from reaching aid. “Myanmar is the country where humanitarian access has deteriorated the most, as access for the Rohingya population has become increasingly difficult,” the group said in a statement. The ACAPS report preceded another released Tuesday by a British parliamentary committee, which warned floods and disease could kill thousands of Rohingya refugees in camps in neighboring Bangladesh. The chair of the International Development Committee, Stephen Twigg, said in a statement that time was running out, adding that donors “must work with the Bangladesh government”. “Substantial numbers of refugees are about to face another crisis. With the weather about to turn, the fragile safety and sanctuary that the Rohingya have found in temporary camps provided by Bangladesh is in jeopardy,” Twigg said. United Nations’ officials say nearly 700,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to Bangladesh. That came after militant attacks in August sparked a crackdown, led by security forces, in Rakhine state that the U.N. and United States have said constitutes ethnic cleansing. Myanmar has repeatedly denied reports implicating soldiers in widespread abuses of Rohingya civilians, particularly in Maungdaw, a border district in western Rakhine State. Although the Myanmar government had allowed some groups to access the district, it was “in a short-term and unpredictable manner”, said Pierre Peron, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Myanmar. “Most humanitarian organizations that had been working in Maungdaw District for years have still not been able to resume life-saving programs for some of the most vulnerable people in the world,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation via email. A Myanmar government spokesman was unavailable for comment. The British parliamentary committee said the situation for Rohingya would likely worsen, with heavy rains expected to begin within days, followed by the cyclone season. “Severe weather conditions and heavy rainfall could result in the deaths of thousands of Rohingya,” the IDC said. The committee warned that the camps in Bangladesh are ill-equipped to withstand the 2.5 meters of heaviest rains predicted to fall from June through August. The camps were built quickly, with shelters in places prone to landslides and flooding. Poor sanitation, as well as a low vaccination rate among Rohingya who had limited access to healthcare in Myanmar, meant flooding would likely bring disease, the IDC said. ACAPS said humanitarian access had also deteriorated in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Pakistan and Turkey. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-aid/myanmar-is-worst-performing-country-for-aid-access-as-rohingya-refugees-face-monsoon-threats-idUSKBN1GW00L (c) 2018 Reuters

COX’S BAZAR, BANGLADESH – Rohingya refugees accused former Myanmar pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi of lying to the International Court of Justice in testimony Wednesday in which she denied that her country’s armed forces were guilty of genocide against the Muslim minority group. Suu Kyi, who is now Myanmar’s leader, told the court that the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents. She denied that the army had killed civilians, raped women and torched houses in 2017. Critics describe the actions by the army as a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee. “The world will judge their claim of no genocide with evidence,” said a Rohingya leader, Mohammed Mohibullah, who is chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights. “A thief never admits he is a thief, but justice can be delivered through evidence. The world has obtained evidence from us,” he said at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district. Even if Suu Kyi lies, she won’t be spared. She will certainly face justice. The world should take steps against her,” he said. Nur Kamal, another refugee at Kutupalong, also rejected Suu Kyi’s testimony. “The military cordoned off people and killed them by opening fire, setting them ablaze — isn’t this genocide? Will this be justified if Syu Ki says so?” Kamal said. “The world will not accept that. The whole world has seen the level of torture of us. It is still going on,” he said. A legal team from Gambia, acting on behalf of the 57-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation, asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to take “all measures within its power to prevent all acts that amount to or contribute to the crime of genocide” in Myanmar. Gambia alleged that genocide was committed and is ongoing. Aung San Suu Kyi at the International Court of Justice - December 11, 2019. Credit: Associated Press Suu Kyi accused Gambia of providing a misleading and incomplete account of what happened in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017. Her appearance at the court was striking in that she was defending the same military that kept her under house arrest for about 15 years. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in absentia for championing democracy and rights under Myanmar’s then-ruling junta. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has consistently denied violating human rights and says military operations in Rakhine state, where most Rohingya lived, were justified in response to attacks on security posts by Rohingya insurgents. A U.N.-established investigation earlier recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the crackdown on the Rohingya. Earlier this year, the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar said rapes of Rohingya by Myanmar’s security forces were systemic and demonstrated the intent to commit genocide. It said in a report the discrimination that Myanmar practiced against the Rohingya in peacetime aggravated the sexual violence toward them during times of conflict. Bangladesh and Myanmar have signed an agreement to start repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, but two attempts failed when no one came forward to return voluntarily, citing continuing security concerns in Myanmar. HTTPS://WWW.JAPANTIMES.CO.JP/NEWS/2019/12/12/ASIA-PACIFIC/CRIME-LEGAL-ASIA-PACIFIC/ROHINGYA-REFUGEES-REJECT-AUNG-SAN-SUU-KYIS-GENOCIDE-DENIAL/#.XFHK_2T7RPZ

Anti-government protesters burn awnings of the Le Gray hotel during ongoing protests against the Lebanese government, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, June 6, 2020. Hundreds of Lebanese demonstrators gathered in central Beirut Saturday, hoping to reboot nationwide anti-government protests that began late last year amid an unprecedented economic and financial crisis. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein) BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese military on Sunday said overnight riots and sectarian tensions in central Beirut and other areas left dozens of people injured, including 25 soldiers, and warned that the clashes had endangered national unity. Riot police fired tear gas at protesters, after Saturday’s attempt to reboot anti-government demonstrations quickly degenerated into rioting and stone-throwing confrontations between opposing camps. Lebanese troops deployed to separate the rival groups, and the tensions eventually subsided before dawn Sunday. The Lebanese Red Cross said 48 demonstrators were wounded, 11 of whom were hospitalized. Shooting broke out in several areas around Lebanon late Saturday after videos circulated on social media showing some supporters of Lebanon’s two main Shiite Muslim groups — Hezbollah and Amal — chanting sectarian insults. Saturday’s protests were the largest since the government last month began gradually easing a lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. Nationwide protests against Lebanon’s political leaders had erupted on Oct. 17 amid an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, but were eventually put on hold due to the pandemic. Lebanon’s army — one of the few institutions seen as a uniting force in the deeply-divided country — called Saturday’s clashes “a serious crisis that could have taken us into dangerous turns. What happened undermined national unity, civil peace and would have increased divisions.” Political and religious leaders issued calls for calm Sunday, after many Sunnis were angered by the online videos of insults against one of the wives of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The schism between Sunni and Shiite in the early days of Islam was deepened when the Prophet Muhammad’s widow, Aisha, fought a battle against the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali, who is one of Shiite Islam’s most revered figures. Hezbollah and Amal issued statements condemning the type of insults seen in the videos, as did Shiite religious leaders. Sunni leaders also condemned the insults and urged calm. President Michel Aoun in a statement called the unrest an “alarm bell,” warning that insults against religious figures and riots are not a way to improve the country’s quality of life. Lebanese rose up last year against their political leaders, blaming them for decades of corruption and mismanagement. Lebanon now faces the biggest threat to its stability since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990. The spiraling economic crisis, the pandemic outbreak and the national protests have raised fears of a new slide into violence. © 2020 The Associated Press