Burma parliament elects Suu Kyi confidant as president

© Ye Aung Thu, AFP | Burma’s newly elected president, Htin Kyaw (pictured left), and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw on March 11, 2016

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-03-15

Myanmar’s parliament elected a close friend and confidant of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as president on Tuesday, making Htin Kyaw the first head of state who does not hail from a military background since the 1960s.

Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide election win in November, but a constitution drafted by the former junta bars her from the top office.
She has vowed to run the country anyway through a proxy president, and on Thursday the NLD nominated Htin Kyaw for the role. He runs a charity founded by Suu Kyi and has been a trusted member of her inner circle since the mid-1990s. He is not a lawmaker.
“Today’s result is because of the love of people for her. It is the victory of my sister Aung San Suu Kyi,” Htin Kyaw told Reuters after the vote.
The NLD’s sizeable majority ensured a comfortable win for Suu Kyi’s pick in a vote by both houses of parliament. Htin Kyaw received 360 of the 652 votes cast, the parliamentary official counting the votes said.
Suu Kyi, who had been the first member of parliament to vote, clapped and smiled after the result was announced.
“This is the big day for us,” Zar Ni Min, an NLD lower house MP, said after the vote. “This is what we have hoped for since a long time ago.”
The still-powerful military holds a quarter of the seats in parliament and has the right under the constitution to nominate one of the three candidates for president. Its candidate, retired general Myint Swe, received 213 votes, making him the first vice president.
Simmering tensions
Tensions between Suu Kyi and the military have simmered in the run-up to the presidential election and as her party prepares to take power.
Relations between the armed forces and Suu Kyi will define the success of Myanmar’s most significant break from military rule since the army seized power in 1962.
Suu Kyi wants to demilitarise Myanmar’s politics, but to do so she effectively needs the support of the military itself.
The armed forces are guaranteed three ministries under the constitution, as well as a parliamentary minority that gives them a veto over constitutional amendments - enough to limit the potential scope of Suu Kyi’s reforms.
Sources in Suu Kyi’s camp say she has grown increasingly frustrated with military intransigence on issues ranging from amending the constitution to relatively minor formalities such as the location of the handover of power.
NLD lawmakers also privately said the military’s choice of Myint Swe went against the spirit of reconciliation that Suu Kyi says she is seeking to foster.
Myint Swe served the junta as head of the feared military intelligence and is on the U.S. sanctions list.
The third candidate for the presidency, Henry Van Thio, was also nominated by the NLD. He will become second vice president and was chosen by Suu Kyi to represent the country’s numerous ethnic minorities. He is a member of the Chin ethnic group from the northwest of Myanmar.
The president picks the cabinet that will take over from President Thein Sein’s outgoing government on April 1, with the exception of the heads of the home, defence and border security ministries, who will be appointed by the armed forces chief.
(REUTERS)

North Korea orders nuclear warhead test in wake of UN sanctions

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-03-15

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered an upcoming nuclear warhead test and multiple ballistic missile launches, escalating Pyongyang's face-off with the international community just days after being slapped with tough UN sanctions.

The order came after Kim monitored what was described as the successful simulated test of the warhead re-entry technology required for a long-range nuclear strike on the US mainland, the North's official KCNA news agency said Tuesday.
Military tensions have been soaring on the divided Korean peninsula since the North carried out its fourth nuclear test on January 6, followed a month later by a long-range rocket launch that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
The UN Security Council responded earlier this month by imposing its toughest sanctions on North Korea to date.
Pyongyang, meanwhile, has maintained a daily barrage of nuclear strike threats against both Seoul and Washington, ostensibly over ongoing, large-scale South Korea-US military drills that the North sees as provocative rehearsals for invasion.
Tests 'in a short time'
In order to boost the reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent still further, Kim said a nuclear warhead explosion test and firings of "several kinds" of ballistic rockets would be carried out "in a short time".
"He instructed the relevant section to make pre-arrangement for them to the last detail," KCNA said.
The order came days after state media released photos of Kim posing with what was claimed to be a miniaturised nuclear warhead capable of fitting on a ballistic missile.
Meeting with her cabinet ministers on Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye said North Korea's endless threats reflected a "sense of crisis" in Pyongyang at its increasing diplomatic and economic isolation.
"If North Korea continues its provocations and confrontation with the international community and does not walk the path of change, it will walk the path of self-destruction," Park said.
While North Korea is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear weapons, its ability to deliver them accurately to a chosen target on the tip of a ballistic missile has been a subject of heated debate.
There are numerous question marks over the North's weapons delivery systems, with many experts believing it is still years from developing a working inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could strike the continental United States.
Tuesday's KCNA report was accompanied by photos of Kim personally monitoring a test simulating the intense heat a nuclear warhead would experience during atmospheric re-entry.
Re-entry 'guarantee’
Protected by "newly developed heat-resisting material" the warhead was reportedly subjected to thermal flows five times hotter than those associated with ICBM flight.
The test was a complete success, the agency said, and provided a "sure guarantee" of the warhead's ability to withstand re-entry -- a major step in the North's push towards a genuine ICBM nuclear strike capability.
South Korea's defence ministry said it was sceptical of the claim.
"According to our military analysis, North Korea has not yet secured re-entry technology," ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told reporters.
North Korea has never tested an ICBM, although it has displayed such a missile, known as the KN-08, during recent mass military parades in Pyongyang.
"It seems highly likely that North Korea is on the verge of conducting a long-range ballistic missile test, involving re-entry," said Chang Yong-Seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University
"It wants to show that sanctions are not effective and to boost the credibility of its deterrent," Chang said.
Melissa Hanham, an expert on North Korea's WMD programme at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, voiced concerns over just how far the North would go to "prove" its technical abilities.
China tested a medium-range ballistic missile with a 12-kiloton nuclear warhead in 1966, the only time a country has flight-tested a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile over populated areas.
"I don't know how North Korea's neighbours could distinguish testing a nuclear-tipped KN-08 from an attack. It would be very dangerous, very destabilising," Hanham said.
(AFP)

Norwergian mass killer Breivik sues state for ‘inhuman’ prison conditions

© Jonathan Nackstrand, AFP | Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has his handcuffs removed after entering a makeshift court in Skien, Norway on March 15, 2016

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-03-15

Mass killer Anders Behring Breivik goes to court on Tuesday to accuse the Norwegian state of inhuman treatment, in a case that is raising questions about how to deal with a man who killed 77 people in 2011.

The militant right winger is appearing in public for the first time since his 2012 trial. In that time, he has had just one visitor, his mother, who was allowed into prison and gave him a hug shortly before she died of cancer in 2013.
Breivik, 37, will argue that his isolation in Skien jail violates a ban on “inhuman and degrading treatment” under the European Convention on Human Rights.

“He wants contact with other people,” his lawyer, Oeystein Storrvik, told reporters before the March 15-18 trial. The case will be heard in a converted gym at the grey, concrete Skien jail, south of Oslo, where Breivik is being held.
Oslo’s office of the Attorney General says there is no case to answer, saying in pre-trial documents: “there is on evidence that the plaintiff has physical or mental problems as a result of prison conditions”.
The judge’s verdict - there is no jury - will be issued in coming weeks. Breivik killed eight people with a bomb in Oslo on July 22, 2011, and gunned down 69 others on an island nearby, many of them teenagers. He is serving Norway’s maximum sentence of 21 years, which can be extended.
In prison he has a three-room cell with a television and a computer but no Internet access. He is allowed out into a yard for exercise. He only meets guards and medical personnel - even Storrvik has to speak to him through glass.
Norwegian authorities note that in a manifesto about his anti-Muslim views, Breivik wrote that “prisons are considered an ideal arena for which to recruit for political purposes.” And other inmates might attack him.
Storrvik said one sign of Breivik’s suffering was inability to concentrate on university studies he began by correspondence course last year.
Storrvik might take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if he fails in Norwegian courts.
In 2014, the court sanctioned Turkey, for instance, for inhuman treatment of Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party, by keeping him in isolation for a decade until 2009.
By contrast, in France, jailed guerrilla mastermind Carlos the Jackal lost a complaint of inhuman treatment in 2005. The court ruled he had access to family and lawyers, even though he was segregated from other prisoners.
(REUTERS)

Pregnant woman’s shock death puts Cameroon’s healthcare under spotlight

Joël H

 

Many contributors have sent us a particularly shocking video that has sparked an uproar in Cameroon. The footage was shot in a hospital in Douala on the morning of March 13. The pregnant woman and her family were turned away, because a doctor said she was dead. Her sister, who said she thought that she “still felt the babies moving”, decided to try to save the unborn twins by slicing open her sister’s belly with a blade, right in front of the hospital.

The babies, however, had already died.

We decided not to publish the graphic video, which has sparked a wave of anger across Cameroon. The day after the video was published, several hundred people gathered in front of the hospital to protest Cameroon’s failing healthcare system.

The family of the victim, Monique Koumate, told local press that Monique was still alive when they got to the emergency room. They claim that the real reason doctors refused to see her was because the family didn’t have enough money to pay the hospital fees. The family state that they begged the medical staff to take her, but in vain.

During a press conference held on Sunday, Public Health Minister Mama Fouda André defended the hospital by giving another version of events. She said that when the woman arrived at the hospital, she had already been dead for four hours.

"Never again a Monique Koumate in my country!!!"

On Sunday, about a hundred protesters, who believed the family’s version of events, gathered in front of Laquintinie hospital with signs reading “Never again a Monique Koumate in my country”. Our Observer Stéphanie, who lives in Douala, went to the protest.

"Poor people can't get access to hospital care"

This story really affected me, all the more so because, sadly, stories like this are common in Cameroon because of the high price you have to pay to be admitted into a hospital. You have to pay a deposit before you see a doctor or have an operation.

Two years ago, my sister almost died in the hospital in very similar circumstances. She was giving birth at a hospital, but there were complications and the only solution was to perform a Caesarian. However, a Caesarian costs almost 200,000 CFA [Editor’s note: equal to 30 euros]. She didn’t have enough money with her because she didn’t think she’d need a Caesarian, so the doctors didn’t want to perform the surgery. She had to wait for our family to get the money and bring it to the hospital before the doctors would start working. My sister could have died waiting.
 

Russian troops begin withdrawal from Syria

Russia forces have begun packing up equipment and supplies in Syria, the defence ministry announced on Tuesday, a day after President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly ordered the majority of Russian forces withdraw from the war-torn country.

Russia’s state-owned Rossiya 24 TV showed images of military personnel loading equipment onto Ilyushin Il-76 heavy transport aircraft carriers at its Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia province.
"Technicians at the airbase have begun preparing aircraft for long-range flights to airbases in the Russian Federation," the defence ministry said in a statement.
The move came after Putin ordered the “main part” of Russian troops in Syria to withdraw on Monday night at a meeting in the Kremlin with his defence and foreign ministers. He said they had largely fulfilled their objectives and ordered an intensification of Russia's diplomatic efforts to broker a peace deal in the country.
But Putin said that a Russian military presence would remain in Syria: at the key port of Tartous and at the Hmeymim airbase (click on link for photos from inside the air base from Russian state-owned Sputnik News). The Russian leader did not give a deadline for the completion of the withdrawal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had telephoned Assad to inform him of the Russian decision. The move was announced on the day United Nations-brokered talks between the warring sides in Syria resumed in Geneva.
"Assad noted the professionalism, courage and heroism of the officers of the Russian armed forces that took part in the military operations and expressed deep appreciation to Russia," the Kremlin statement said.
The surprise announcement came with no advance warning to the United States.
Western diplomats are speculating that Putin may be trying to press Assad into accepting a political settlement to the five-year civil war which has killed 250,000 people.
Military campaign set ‘conditions for peace process’
The statement announcing the start of the Russian withdrawal also noted that Moscow’s military intervention had created the conditions necessary for a peace process to proceed.
"I believe that the task put before the defence ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled. With the participation of the Russian military... the Syrian armed forces and patriotic Syrian forces have been able to achieve a fundamental turnaround in the fight against international terrorism and have taken the initiative in almost all respects," Putin said.
Russia began its bombing campaign in support of Assad's forces in September, a move that helped shore up the Syrian regime's crumbling forces and go on the offensive.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Washington was encouraged by Putin’s announcement but that it was too early to say what it means, whether he will carry it out, and what may have motivated it.
A temporary ceasefire in the country introduced on February 27 has largely held, despite accusations of violations from both sides, allowing aid to reach some 150,000 people living under siege.
'Positive step'
The UN Security Council commended the decision as a positive step, the body’s president said on Monday.
The council discussed the surprise Russian announcement during a closed-door meeting, when it also heard a report from UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on a new round of peace talks that opened in Geneva.
“The decision just announced today by the Russian president — that’s a positive step,” said Angolan Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins, who holds the council’s rotating presidency this month.
But Syrian rebels and opposition officials alike reacted sceptically.
“I don’t understand the Russian announcement, it’s a surprise, like the way they entered the war. God protect us,” said Fadi Ahmad, spokesman for the First Coastal Division, a Free Syria Army group fighting in the northwest.
Opposition spokesman Salim al-Muslat demanded a total Russian withdrawal. “Nobody knows what is in Putin’s mind, but the point is he has no right to be in be our country in the first place. Just go,” he said.
A European diplomat was also sceptical. “It has the potential to put a lot of pressure on Assad and the timing fits that,” the diplomat said.
“However, I say potentially because we’ve seen before with Russia that what’s promised isn’t always what happens.”
Moment of truth
The Geneva talks are the first in more than two years and come amid a marked reduction in fighting after last month’s “cessation of hostilities,” sponsored by Washington and Moscow and accepted by Assad’s government and many of his foes.
Speaking before Putin’s announcement, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said Syria faced a moment of truth, as he opened talks in Geneva  to end a war which has displaced half the population, sent refugees streaming into Europe and turned Syria into a battlefield for foreign forces and jihadis.
The limited truce, which excludes the powerful Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups, is fragile. The warring sides have accused each other of multiple violations and they arrived in Geneva with what look like irreconcilable agendas.
The Syrian opposition has said the talks must focus on setting up a transitional governing body with full executive power, and that Assad must leave power at the start of the transition.
Damascus has said Assad’s opponents are deluded if they think they will take power at the negotiating table.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, REUTERS)

About 1,000 migrants on Greek border seek new route into Macedonia

© AFP/File | Migrants look at the Macedonian side of the border through a fence at the Greek-Macedonian border near the Greek village of Idomeni, on March 3, 2016

CHAMILO (GRÈCE) (AFP) -  Some 1,000 migrants stranded at a camp on the Greek border set off on foot towards Macedonia on Monday in search of an alternative route into the country, an AFP reporter saw, adding that the group was quickly surrounded by Greek police.
The group marched from the overcrowded Idomeni camp to the nearby village of Chamilo, close to the sealed frontier with Macedonia. There was no immediate sign of any police across the border.

© 2016 AFP

Russia opposes sanctions on Iran for ballistic missile test

© Tasnim News/AFP/File | A long-range Qadr ballistic missile is launched in the Alborz mountain range in northern Iran on March 9, 2016

UNITED NATIONS (UNITED STATES) (AFP) -  Russia opposes imposing sanctions on Iran over its recent ballistic missile tests, Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations said Monday.
Asked whether the Security Council should impose penalties on Iran, Vitaly Churkin said: "The clear and short answer is no."

© 2016 AFP