Commenting for the first time since the set of five laws were passed on Monday, she said she is surprised but undaunted by the laws which will also bar her from voting in elections expected later this year.
Showing posts with label News Of The Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News Of The Day. Show all posts
Monday
Aung San Suu Kyi's involvement in national politics,
Commenting for the first time since the set of five laws were passed on Monday, she said she is surprised but undaunted by the laws which will also bar her from voting in elections expected later this year.
Sunday
SEPANG, Malaysia (cripdo) — A growing number of immigrants from Myanmar are ending up stuck, often for months, in crowded detention centers in Malaysia designed to hold people for only a few weeks.
Almost 2,800 Myanmarese were detained at camps in July, more than double the 1,200 in January, partly because of a crackdown on human trafficking, a step-up in raids and a slow economy that leaves the migrants without jobs. People from Myanmar, a desperately poor country with a military junta, are now the biggest group among the 7,000 foreigners at detention centers in Malaysia.
At a center near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, some 120 men sat in neat rows on the floor. Many had their legs drawn to their chests, and all were barefoot. There was not enough space and not enough bedding.
"There is no soap for taking a shower, nothing. They don't give us anything," said Kyaw Zin Lin, 23, who said he fled to avoid being drafted into the Myanmar army. "Every day we eat the food just to survive. ... They treat us like animals."
"It's very difficult to stay here," said Aung Kuh The, a pale 26-year-old. "We have got a lot of problems. Some people, you know, we want to see the doctor but we don't have the chance."
One reason for the rise in detainees is a crackdown on trafficking. A report published in April by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations cited firsthand accounts of Myanmarese who said immigration officers turned them over to traffickers.
That practice has all but stopped, Myanmar community leaders in Malaysia say.
Now, though, the Myanmarese are trapped in detention. The Myanmar embassy often takes six months to register its citizens for deportation and charges them 620 ringgit ($180), much more than neighboring Indonesia. By contrast, detainees from other countries are typically deported within a week.
Calls to the Myanmar embassy were repeatedly put on hold and then unanswered. About half the Myanmarese — those fleeing persecution — may qualify for U.N. refugee status, but that process takes up to four months. The others are economic migrants. Some 140,000 Myanmarese work in Malaysia, but foreign workers who are laid off lose the right to stay.
Some Myanmarese have spent more than six months in crowded, dirty detention centers. One man, whose brother was in detention for four months, said he would rather be sold to traffickers from whom he could buy his freedom.
"I prefer to be trafficked," said the man, who would only be identified by his nickname, Ryan, to protect his relatives in Myanmar. "I don't mind paying 2,000 ringgit ($570)."
Five of Malaysia's 13 detention centers are overcrowded; four of the five have large Myanmarese populations, according to the immigration department. Journalists from The Associated Press accompanied the human rights group Amnesty International on a rare visit recently to three detention centers just south of Kuala Lumpur, the country's biggest city.
At the Lenggeng Detention Depot, 1,400 people are crammed into dormitories meant for 1,200. Of them about 300 are from Myanmar.
Hundreds of men jostle each other for room in the bare dormitories. One sleeps on a stone ledge in a bathroom. Each dormitory is fenced by wire mesh and barbed wire, giving detainees just a few meters (feet) of space for walking.
"The detention centers we saw fell short of international standards in many respects, as the immigration authorities themselves acknowledge," said Michael Bochenek of Amnesty International. "It's a facility of such size that infectious diseases are communicated readily."
Saw Pho Tun, a refugee community leader, said some immigration officers have singled out Myanmarese detainees for rough treatment, beating them and not allowing them medical assistance. Immigration officials deny beating detainees and say everyone has access to medical care.
On July 1, detainees at another center flung their food trays and damaged some of the mesh fence. Immigration officials blamed the riot on frustration about having to stay so long, but detainees say they rioted because they were afraid of abuse.
Most of the blocks have now been shut for repairs, so more than 1,000 detainees — including 700 from Myanmar — were transferred ot other already crowded centers.
Abdul Rahman Othman, the director general of the Immigration Department, said he was taking steps to prevent his officers from being "entangled" in trafficking syndicates. He said officers would be rotated to different posts every three years and have a buddy system to supervise each other.
"Ninety-nine percent of us in immigration are good people," he said, denying the problem is widespread.
Police arrested five officers on trafficking allegations last month. They say their investigations revealed immigration officials took Myanmar immigrants to the Thai border and sold them for up to 600 ringgit ($170) to traffickers. The traffickers then told the migrants to pay 2,000 ringgit ($570) for their freedom, or they would be forced to work in the fishing industry, police said.
Myanmar community leaders said women who failed to pay were sold into prostitution.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Almost 2,800 Myanmarese were detained at camps in July, more than double the 1,200 in January, partly because of a crackdown on human trafficking, a step-up in raids and a slow economy that leaves the migrants without jobs. People from Myanmar, a desperately poor country with a military junta, are now the biggest group among the 7,000 foreigners at detention centers in Malaysia.
At a center near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, some 120 men sat in neat rows on the floor. Many had their legs drawn to their chests, and all were barefoot. There was not enough space and not enough bedding.
"There is no soap for taking a shower, nothing. They don't give us anything," said Kyaw Zin Lin, 23, who said he fled to avoid being drafted into the Myanmar army. "Every day we eat the food just to survive. ... They treat us like animals."
"It's very difficult to stay here," said Aung Kuh The, a pale 26-year-old. "We have got a lot of problems. Some people, you know, we want to see the doctor but we don't have the chance."
One reason for the rise in detainees is a crackdown on trafficking. A report published in April by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations cited firsthand accounts of Myanmarese who said immigration officers turned them over to traffickers.
That practice has all but stopped, Myanmar community leaders in Malaysia say.
Now, though, the Myanmarese are trapped in detention. The Myanmar embassy often takes six months to register its citizens for deportation and charges them 620 ringgit ($180), much more than neighboring Indonesia. By contrast, detainees from other countries are typically deported within a week.
Calls to the Myanmar embassy were repeatedly put on hold and then unanswered. About half the Myanmarese — those fleeing persecution — may qualify for U.N. refugee status, but that process takes up to four months. The others are economic migrants. Some 140,000 Myanmarese work in Malaysia, but foreign workers who are laid off lose the right to stay.
Some Myanmarese have spent more than six months in crowded, dirty detention centers. One man, whose brother was in detention for four months, said he would rather be sold to traffickers from whom he could buy his freedom.
"I prefer to be trafficked," said the man, who would only be identified by his nickname, Ryan, to protect his relatives in Myanmar. "I don't mind paying 2,000 ringgit ($570)."
Five of Malaysia's 13 detention centers are overcrowded; four of the five have large Myanmarese populations, according to the immigration department. Journalists from The Associated Press accompanied the human rights group Amnesty International on a rare visit recently to three detention centers just south of Kuala Lumpur, the country's biggest city.
At the Lenggeng Detention Depot, 1,400 people are crammed into dormitories meant for 1,200. Of them about 300 are from Myanmar.
Hundreds of men jostle each other for room in the bare dormitories. One sleeps on a stone ledge in a bathroom. Each dormitory is fenced by wire mesh and barbed wire, giving detainees just a few meters (feet) of space for walking.
"The detention centers we saw fell short of international standards in many respects, as the immigration authorities themselves acknowledge," said Michael Bochenek of Amnesty International. "It's a facility of such size that infectious diseases are communicated readily."
Saw Pho Tun, a refugee community leader, said some immigration officers have singled out Myanmarese detainees for rough treatment, beating them and not allowing them medical assistance. Immigration officials deny beating detainees and say everyone has access to medical care.
On July 1, detainees at another center flung their food trays and damaged some of the mesh fence. Immigration officials blamed the riot on frustration about having to stay so long, but detainees say they rioted because they were afraid of abuse.
Most of the blocks have now been shut for repairs, so more than 1,000 detainees — including 700 from Myanmar — were transferred ot other already crowded centers.
Abdul Rahman Othman, the director general of the Immigration Department, said he was taking steps to prevent his officers from being "entangled" in trafficking syndicates. He said officers would be rotated to different posts every three years and have a buddy system to supervise each other.
"Ninety-nine percent of us in immigration are good people," he said, denying the problem is widespread.
Police arrested five officers on trafficking allegations last month. They say their investigations revealed immigration officials took Myanmar immigrants to the Thai border and sold them for up to 600 ringgit ($170) to traffickers. The traffickers then told the migrants to pay 2,000 ringgit ($570) for their freedom, or they would be forced to work in the fishing industry, police said.
Myanmar community leaders said women who failed to pay were sold into prostitution.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday
Malaysian terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top is still at large in Indonesia
(CRIPDO NEWS)-JAKARTA (AFP) – Malaysian terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top is still at large in Indonesia and was not killed in a raid on the weekend, police said Wednesday after the latest near-miss in a six-year manhunt.
DNA tests showed that a militant killed in the raid was not the terror financier and recruiter, one of Asia's most-wanted men, but an accomplice who had helped plan the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta, they said.
The dead man, Ibrohim, had also been groomed to launch a suicide attack against Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono later this month.
"I announce officially that the war against terrorism has not ended yet," police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a packed press conference, in a blow to the authorities' efforts to crush Indonesia's most dangerous terror network.
"The dead body is Ibrohim... We tried to match the DNA with the sample from Johor (Noordin's son) and it didn't match."
Ibrohim was a florist who worked at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, where seven people including foreigners were killed in almost simultaneous suicide attacks last month.
Police released new security camera footage showing a man identified as Ibrohim escorting the Marriott bomber around the hotel on July 8 and later bringing bomb-making material into the hotel's staff-only loading bay.
"Ibrohim was a planner who was always present in the meetings with Noordin M. Top," Soekarna said.
"He was going to be a suicide bomber against Cikeas," Yudhoyono's home outside Jakarta, the spokesman added, referring to another plot uncovered by police on Saturday.
Soekarna revealed that ahead of the July 17 attacks Noordin had attended planning meetings in Kuningan, Central Java, Bekasi outside Jakarta and Mampang, a Jakarta suburb.
Police killed two would-be suicide bombers and uncovered a massive cache of explosive materials during a raid on a house in Bekasi before dawn on Saturday.
A truck bomb found at the house was going to be used by Ibrohim to attack Yudhoyono's principal residence around Indonesia's Independence Day celebrations on August 17, police said.
Noordin, 41, leads what he calls "Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago", an offshoot of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror organisation blamed for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people, mainly Western tourists.
Police had received a tip-off that the Islamist was hiding in a farmhouse in Central Java on Friday and launched a massive raid by scores of heavily armed counter-terrorism police.
Local and international media reported the Malaysian had been killed during the 17-hour siege, raising hopes that the exhaustive manhunt had come to an end.
Noordin has already escaped two earlier armed assaults on his hideouts, and his legend will likely only grow among his disciples and on Islamist websites.
Pressure will also mount on Indonesia's US-trained counter-terrorism forces to track him down before he can do further damage to the country's hard-earned image as a stable and moderate Muslim-majority country.
"All of us really hope that he can be caught soon, but the fact we're facing now is we haven't been able to catch him," Soekarna told AFP, saying it was unclear if Noordin had ever been in the Central Java farmhouse.
"We have foiled attacks but it doesn't mean that they have stopped preparing more attacks, which we have to anticipate."
Noordin has allegedly plotted a series of suicide blasts against prominent Western targets in Indonesia since 2003, including two bombings at the Jakarta Marriott and a massive suicide truck blast at the Australian embassy in 2004.
Three Noordin accomplices have been arrested and three killed by police in connection to the latest hotel attacks, but another three to five unidentified suspects are being pursued, Soekarna said.
Senior counter-terror official Ansyad Mbai said that far from failing, police had succeeded in foiling a major attack against the president.
"We have discovered that their targets are not only the West and America but also domestic, meaning the president. They see democracy as a threat," he told AFP.
DNA tests showed that a militant killed in the raid was not the terror financier and recruiter, one of Asia's most-wanted men, but an accomplice who had helped plan the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta, they said.
The dead man, Ibrohim, had also been groomed to launch a suicide attack against Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono later this month.
"I announce officially that the war against terrorism has not ended yet," police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a packed press conference, in a blow to the authorities' efforts to crush Indonesia's most dangerous terror network.
"The dead body is Ibrohim... We tried to match the DNA with the sample from Johor (Noordin's son) and it didn't match."
Ibrohim was a florist who worked at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, where seven people including foreigners were killed in almost simultaneous suicide attacks last month.
Police released new security camera footage showing a man identified as Ibrohim escorting the Marriott bomber around the hotel on July 8 and later bringing bomb-making material into the hotel's staff-only loading bay.
"Ibrohim was a planner who was always present in the meetings with Noordin M. Top," Soekarna said.
"He was going to be a suicide bomber against Cikeas," Yudhoyono's home outside Jakarta, the spokesman added, referring to another plot uncovered by police on Saturday.
Soekarna revealed that ahead of the July 17 attacks Noordin had attended planning meetings in Kuningan, Central Java, Bekasi outside Jakarta and Mampang, a Jakarta suburb.
Police killed two would-be suicide bombers and uncovered a massive cache of explosive materials during a raid on a house in Bekasi before dawn on Saturday.
A truck bomb found at the house was going to be used by Ibrohim to attack Yudhoyono's principal residence around Indonesia's Independence Day celebrations on August 17, police said.
Noordin, 41, leads what he calls "Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago", an offshoot of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror organisation blamed for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people, mainly Western tourists.
Police had received a tip-off that the Islamist was hiding in a farmhouse in Central Java on Friday and launched a massive raid by scores of heavily armed counter-terrorism police.
Local and international media reported the Malaysian had been killed during the 17-hour siege, raising hopes that the exhaustive manhunt had come to an end.
Noordin has already escaped two earlier armed assaults on his hideouts, and his legend will likely only grow among his disciples and on Islamist websites.
Pressure will also mount on Indonesia's US-trained counter-terrorism forces to track him down before he can do further damage to the country's hard-earned image as a stable and moderate Muslim-majority country.
"All of us really hope that he can be caught soon, but the fact we're facing now is we haven't been able to catch him," Soekarna told AFP, saying it was unclear if Noordin had ever been in the Central Java farmhouse.
"We have foiled attacks but it doesn't mean that they have stopped preparing more attacks, which we have to anticipate."
Noordin has allegedly plotted a series of suicide blasts against prominent Western targets in Indonesia since 2003, including two bombings at the Jakarta Marriott and a massive suicide truck blast at the Australian embassy in 2004.
Three Noordin accomplices have been arrested and three killed by police in connection to the latest hotel attacks, but another three to five unidentified suspects are being pursued, Soekarna said.
Senior counter-terror official Ansyad Mbai said that far from failing, police had succeeded in foiling a major attack against the president.
"We have discovered that their targets are not only the West and America but also domestic, meaning the president. They see democracy as a threat," he told AFP.
Saturday
Noordin Top believed killed in police
SUSPECTED terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top was believed to have been killed in a Central Java police raid today.
Indonesian police this afternoon were evacuating bodies from the house they had stormed, believing that the regional militant leader was hiding on the premises with several followers.
Indonesian news stations carried television footage of the raid, and quoted a police source as being "80 per cent certain" that Top had been in the house.
Top is suspected of having had a leading role in last month's attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the capital, Jakarta, which killed nine people, including three Australians.
The raid today broke a 17-hour siege of the house that had officers trading automatic weapons fire with the militants.
Indonesian anti-terror police made their first significant advance in the Jakarta bombing investigation last night, when they raided the house in the Central Java village.
A gun battle then raged around the house.
The raid was in Temanggung, near the provincial capital of Semarang, and in the same area where another man already linked to the bombs three weeks ago, Nur Said, grew up.
Detachment 88 anti-terror investigators were engaged in a prolonged gunbattle from around 5pm (8pm AEST) yesterday, after evacuating near neighbours first.
Since dawn this morning, at least five explosions had rocked the suspected hideout of the alleged terrorist mastermind, who is a Malaysian.
Police spokesman Nanan Sukarna said officers believed that the alleged militant leader and terror mastermind and two or three of his followers had been inside, but could not immediately confirm their fate.
Minutes after the raid, witnesses said officers outside the house took off their helmets and were shaking hands with each other, suggesting all those inside had either been killed or captured.
Police with anti-blast shields had earlier approached the house, which had been severely damaged in the course of the overnight siege, and laid explosive charges before detonating them through cables.
Another line of about 25 police had taken position on an adjacent hill and fired repeated volleys from their assault rifles into the house below. Some 50 other police had been stationed elsewhere around the property.
Rounds of gunfire burst through the walls from the inside, but it was not clear if this came from the occupants of the house, or from police.
When asked earlier by reporters if Top was in the house, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said: “God willing”.
Nur Said, the second person linked to the bombings three weeks ago, and who went to school at Abu Bakar Bashir's Muslim boarding school in the city of Solo with 2003 Mariott Hotel bomber Asmar Latin Sani, has been a key police suspect for several years but has not yet been located.
Some neighbours said the man who rented the house bore physical similarities to Top, a terrorist linked to al-Qai'da and Jemaah Islamiah.
There were also unconfirmed reports of a grenade being found in the house. Top's father-in-law, Central Java preacher Bahrudin Latif, was also believed to have been one of four people inside.
Mr Latif's daughter Arina, and two toddlers presumed to be Top's children, were taken into police custody days after the July 17 bombings on hotels in Jakarta.
Police admitted repeatedly in recent days they had been unable to turn up any new leads in the case.
However, the shootout and subsequent storming of the house followed the arrests of two men earlier yesterday at a nearby market. Those men are believed to have led police to the house SEE VIDEO..
.
The raid came after Barack Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, said the US President is replacing the "global war on terror" with a new US strategy more narrowly focused on al-Qa'ida and relying more on a broader effort to engage the Muslim world.
The Jakarta hotel blasts last month broke a four-year gap in terror strikes in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The Malaysian Top is also believed to have played a major role in four other bombings in Indonesia since 2002, including nightclub bombings on the resort island of Bali that year that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Orther News..
Indonesian police this afternoon were evacuating bodies from the house they had stormed, believing that the regional militant leader was hiding on the premises with several followers.
Indonesian news stations carried television footage of the raid, and quoted a police source as being "80 per cent certain" that Top had been in the house.
Top is suspected of having had a leading role in last month's attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the capital, Jakarta, which killed nine people, including three Australians.
The raid today broke a 17-hour siege of the house that had officers trading automatic weapons fire with the militants.
Indonesian anti-terror police made their first significant advance in the Jakarta bombing investigation last night, when they raided the house in the Central Java village.
A gun battle then raged around the house.
The raid was in Temanggung, near the provincial capital of Semarang, and in the same area where another man already linked to the bombs three weeks ago, Nur Said, grew up.
Detachment 88 anti-terror investigators were engaged in a prolonged gunbattle from around 5pm (8pm AEST) yesterday, after evacuating near neighbours first.
Since dawn this morning, at least five explosions had rocked the suspected hideout of the alleged terrorist mastermind, who is a Malaysian.
Police spokesman Nanan Sukarna said officers believed that the alleged militant leader and terror mastermind and two or three of his followers had been inside, but could not immediately confirm their fate.
Minutes after the raid, witnesses said officers outside the house took off their helmets and were shaking hands with each other, suggesting all those inside had either been killed or captured.
Police with anti-blast shields had earlier approached the house, which had been severely damaged in the course of the overnight siege, and laid explosive charges before detonating them through cables.
Another line of about 25 police had taken position on an adjacent hill and fired repeated volleys from their assault rifles into the house below. Some 50 other police had been stationed elsewhere around the property.
Rounds of gunfire burst through the walls from the inside, but it was not clear if this came from the occupants of the house, or from police.
When asked earlier by reporters if Top was in the house, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said: “God willing”.
Nur Said, the second person linked to the bombings three weeks ago, and who went to school at Abu Bakar Bashir's Muslim boarding school in the city of Solo with 2003 Mariott Hotel bomber Asmar Latin Sani, has been a key police suspect for several years but has not yet been located.
Some neighbours said the man who rented the house bore physical similarities to Top, a terrorist linked to al-Qai'da and Jemaah Islamiah.
There were also unconfirmed reports of a grenade being found in the house. Top's father-in-law, Central Java preacher Bahrudin Latif, was also believed to have been one of four people inside.
Mr Latif's daughter Arina, and two toddlers presumed to be Top's children, were taken into police custody days after the July 17 bombings on hotels in Jakarta.
Police admitted repeatedly in recent days they had been unable to turn up any new leads in the case.
However, the shootout and subsequent storming of the house followed the arrests of two men earlier yesterday at a nearby market. Those men are believed to have led police to the house SEE VIDEO..
.
The raid came after Barack Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, said the US President is replacing the "global war on terror" with a new US strategy more narrowly focused on al-Qa'ida and relying more on a broader effort to engage the Muslim world.
The Jakarta hotel blasts last month broke a four-year gap in terror strikes in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The Malaysian Top is also believed to have played a major role in four other bombings in Indonesia since 2002, including nightclub bombings on the resort island of Bali that year that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Orther News..
Monday
News Of The Day
UNHCR chief visits Myanmar抯 Rakhine state
Web posted at: 3/12/2009 9:21:23
Source ::: DPA YANGON: United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres (pictured) arrived in Yangon yesterday after a two-day visit to Rakhine state, the traditional homeland of Rohingya refugees, officials confirmed.
揌e visited Sittwe yesterday afternoon and also visited Yathittaung town today,?said a state official who requested anonymity.
Guterres?agency has offices in both Sittwe and Yathittaung, which are responsible for monitoring the welfare of about 800,000 stateless Rohinyas living in the western state, mostly along the border area with Bangladesh.
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority group who have lived in Myanmar抯 Rakhine state for generations but have been denied citizenship and the right to own property or seek employment.
The plight of the Rohingya was brought to world attention in January after Thailand was accused of forcing hundreds of Rohingya refugees back to sea in vessels without engines or sufficient food.
A regional effort is under way to tackle the problem of Rohingya refugees seeking work in South-East Asia.
At a summit meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) last month, Myanmar agreed to allow Rohingyas to settle in the country on the grounds they could prove they were Bengalis and provide evidence of former residence in Myanmar.
There are an estimated 200,000 Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Although the Rohingya are not included on the government抯 list of 135 recognized ethnic minority groups, Bengalis are.
Guterres was scheduled to end his visit today after visiting Myaik Myaik, capital of Tanintharyi division in the southern part of Myanmar, where one of his projects has been implemented, according to official sources.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Philippines+%26+South+Asia&month=March2009&file=World_News2009031292123.xml
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